Max in Las Vegas: 'A bit of guesswork'

Published on 16 November 2023 by Florence Cobben

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is shaping up to be the biggest show spectacle in the history of Formula 1. On some fronts, it might be too crazy. For Max Verstappen, however, racing comes first. The three-time world champion sounds off to the press from the TV Pen in Vegas: “I always want to focus on the performance side of things, I don’t like all the things around it anyway. You know there are some places where it's part of it, but, let’s say, it’s not in my interest”.  

The layout of the circuit is sometimes jokingly described as a pig lying on its back. Max: “There’s not many corners to be honest. It also will depend on how grip-py it is. It doesn’t look like there is a lot of grip. But we’ll go with the flow. But I’m looking forward to trying to do the best I can.”

The low temperatures of ten to fifteen degrees with a chance of rain will make it difficult to find grip. “I think no one really knows where (they’re) at”, Max explains. “I think it’s more important that we go out there, feel the conditions, feel the grip, and then just try to settle in and see what happens.”

The Dutch Oracle Red Bull Racing driver continues: “We tried some things in terms of setup, but when you don’t really know how bumpy it’s going to be, how grip-py it’s going to be, then you can’t really go into detail compared to some other tracks, where you more or less know what kind of grip you’re going to get. And even there it’s still hard to nail the setup, so it’s really a bit of guesswork.”

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