When asked if he enjoyed driving the Las Vegas Strip Circuit for the first time, Red Bull‘s Max Verstappen flatly declared his dislike for Formula 1’s latest track.
Heading into the weekend in the Mojave Desert, the Dutchman had already said that he wasn’t a fan of the circuit layout and called it boring due to the lack of corners and after spending a full 90 minutes touring the iconic sights of Las Vegas, he hasn’t warmed to the track.
“No,” Verstappen said to F1TV, responding to whether he liked the circuit more after FP2. “No, I’ve had better tracks in my life.
“I mean, I already said that yesterday, there’s nothing new that I discovered, but we just get on with it.”
Verstappen‘s best time was only good enough for sixth in FP2 at the 2023 Las Vegas GP, and he was almost a second down on Charles Leclerc who set the fastest time in the Ferrari.
Verstappen gives intriguing tyre feedback
With the Las Vegas Grand Prix being limited in corners but plentiful in straights, plus with the combination of cold temperatures, tyres are the thing to watch this weekend.
It will be difficult to maintain heat cycles to avoid rapid degradation and graining, with ex-drivers predicting that it could take two, or even three, warm-up laps to maximise the grip potential in qualifying.
“I think the soft over you know one lap of course is good,” Verstappen said. “Long run was a bit more difficult seemed like the soft tyre was struggling quite a lot out there.
“So we very quickly went on to the medium, but it seems like even the medium is not a straightforward tyre as well in the long run. So there still a bit of things that we have to look into to see how we can improve our degradation in the long run.
“I think we still look very good compared to others as well, but I feel like maybe we can still do a better job.”
