F1 Las Vegas Race Weekend Off To Nightmare Start For Fans, Ferrari, Drain Covers, Pretty Much Everyone

Despite all the build-up and excitement, the start of the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend has been a disaster. For Formula 1, for race organizers, and perhaps most of all, for Ferrari.

But at least there’s nowhere to go but up.

Sure, the visuals are incredible. However, the on-track action did not get off to a hot start.

Drivers took to the circuit — which uses public roads including a large portion of the famed Las Vegas Strip — late Thursday night but didn’t get too much time to get a feel for the new track.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz found a drain cover that had been loosened by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon on the long straight between turns 12 and 14 (the fastest part of the track), and it did a number on his car.

Once the car was recovered it was revealed that the contact ripped a hole clean through the floor of Sainz’s car. Like all the way through. To the point that you could see the track through his cockpit.

Once race control realized what had happened the session — which had already been red-flagged — was completely abandoned after less than 10 minutes of running.

The incident meant that the FIA, F1, and local track personnel had to go around the 3.8-mile track checking and securing all of the drain coverings. This delayed the start of FP2 until 2 am local time.

The FP1 Incident In Las Vegas Is A Massive Problem For Ferrari

That’s a brutal start for all teams considering any and all track time is valuable but no one was affected worse than Ferrari.

We already talked about how Sainz’s car suffered a lot of damage. The damage was so severe, that the team had to swap out Sainz’s power unit. He needed a new engine, energy store, control electronics, and even a new survival cell. That last one is obviously very important..

However, this put them over their season allocation, which meant an automatic 10-place grid drop for the Grand Prix. That means that even if he qualifies on pole, Sainz will have to start the race out of the points. 

Is that a huge deal? Well, it depends on how far down the order he starts. It looks like there are places to possibly get overtakes accomplished around the circuit.

Still, no one has ever raced on it, i.e., no one has any idea how easy it will be to pull off an overtake.

Carlos Sainz Grid Drop Divided Opinions... Kind Of

Still, it's a tough break for the Scuderia, and Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur was incensed.

Understandably so.

This is a major issue for his team from a big-picture perspective. Ferrari is just 20 points behind Mercedes for P2 in the constructors standings with two races left. The difference between P2 and P3 is millions of dollars in prize money.

So, while there’s a case to be made that Ferrari shouldn’t be dealt such a severe punishment based on what happened — an argument others including McLaren CEO Zak Brown agreed with — you won’t be shocked to learn that Mercedes boss Toto Wolff disagreed.

He’s right… technically. This sort of thing has happened before. But with the championships having been locked up for months, the last thing F1 needs is one of the few compelling on-track battles remaining determined by a fluke incident in a practice session.

Officials tried to find a loophole to avoid penalizing Sainz, according to the Sky Sports broadcast. However, those pesky regulations are just a little too tight these days for them to do it.

Bummer… for Ferrari. Mercedes probably thinks this is pretty cool.

Cars Hit The Vegas Strip... After 2 In The Morning Local Time

Fortunately, cars were back on track… at 2:30 am local time. I get that it’s Vegas, but I can’t imagine too many people were thrilled about hearing the shriek of V-6 turbo hybrid engines that early (hey, they’re lucky the V-10s are a thing of the past).

FP2 was lengthened to a 90-minute session which means that teams only missed out on a few minutes of track times. Even Ferrari managed to use the delay to put Sainz’s car back together in time for him to get on track. Better yet for the team, Sainz and teammate Charles Leclerc topped the time charts at the end of the session.

Unfortunately, the long night meant that the few hardcore fans who stuck around for FP2 were forced to leave the grandstands because track officials were concerned they didn’t have the staff to properly manage fans.

You can understand that. However, imagine shelling out the money for an F1 ticket and not being allowed to sit in the grandstands for one of the sessions. I’d be irate. You’d be irate. We’d all be irate.

There are still two nights of on-track action ahead. Fortunately for race organizers, there’s nowhere to go but up after a nightmare first night of the weekend.

Follow on X: @Matt_Reigle