The Las Vegas Grand Prix was a Formula 1 race like no other. The spectacle in the middle of the casino oasis put an extra burden on the drivers and teams for several reasons: the bizarre late-night schedules, the extensive media obligations and the bombastic nature of racing on the Strip. The unique Saturday night race required an unusual effort from the BWT Alpine F1 Team to prepare, including blackout curtains and greyscale casino towers.

Full disclosure: Alpine invited me to join its F1 team for the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, including staying at the Venetian Resort alongside the team.

Wednesday was the first official day of the race week and featured a star-studded opening ceremony akin to a Super Bowl halftime show. Just two hours before, Alpine drivers Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were racing team-branded gondolas in the Venetian’s indoor canals; a stunt was filmed for television and social media. It was impossible to avoid the fact this wasn’t a normal Formula 1 weekend.

I would later discover that it was early in the day for the drivers despite only being 5:00 p.m. local time. Vegas’ pomp and promotional activations couldn’t distract from the sporting competition at the core of this half-billion-dollar event. Gasly said to me, “As an F1 driver, you need to be on top of your game every single time you jump in the car.” Both Gasly and Ocon worked with their trainers to be well-rested and at their cognitive peak for the track sessions regardless of the local time.

F1 races typically start at 3:00 p.m. However, the start time in Vegas was at 10:00 p.m. under floodlights and neon signs. Every F1 driver had to acclimate to a time zone shift as if they were racing in Japan, not Nevada. The days on-site would start in the afternoon and end in the early hours of the following morning.

Alpine’s drivers got a headstart on acclimating. Gasly had a session in the team’s simulator on Friday before race week and shifted his sleep schedule on Saturday. He emphasized, “You don’t tackle jetlag the day you arrive.” He hoped to get into a steady rhythm by Tuesday when he competed in the Netflix Cup, a made-for-streaming pro-am golf tournament at the Wynn Golf Club.

Mentioning the simulator, it’s a tool that F1 teams heavily rely on to prepare for race weekends. The sim was even more crucial for Las Vegas because it’s an entirely new circuit that no one has raced on before. The drivers must learn the track, and engineers also need to prepare their cars. Alpine’s technical director Matt Harman stated the team always aims to have a track-specific setup ready before either Alpine A523 even rolls out for practice.

The sim version of the Las Vegas street circuit was somewhat different from what the drivers actually experienced. Ocon explained to me, “Because it was a very last-minute model, the track was well made, but you had like gray towers on the side.” He hoped the trackside buildings would be fully fleshed out for next year.

When I asked his teammate for further details, Gasly replied surprised, “Did he say that? He wasn’t supposed to say that!” He wasn’t a massive fan of Ocon sharing any information about the team’s proprietary simulator. Gasly added, “He speaks too much. I need to have a word with him.” However, nothing in the sim could have prepared Ocon for what happened to him the first time out on track.

The first practice session on Thursday night immediately threw a violent curveball for Alpine. Eight minutes into practice, Carlos Sainz drove over a water valve cover and its concrete frame failed. The cover was shot straight into the floor of Sainz’s Ferrari, destroying the car. Ocon significantly damaged his own machine when he drove over the debris. Alpine mechanics spent the rest of the night rebuilding Ocon’s car with a spare chassis. The sun was starting to rise when some team personnel finally arrived back at the hotel.

Despite qualifying 17th the next night, Ocon repaid his team’s efforts with a spectacular drive up the field during the race. He passed a dozen other drivers, including Gasly, to finish in fourth place, his second-best result of the season.

Not long after the checkered flag, the team’s focus shifted to the next week’s season finale in Abu Dhabi and next season. When asked about the expected toll of the 24-race 2024 season, Ocon quickly acknowledged the people with the most demanding roles on this intercontinental odyssey. He said, “It’s tough, for sure. I can’t complain on my side. The guys in the garage, the mechanics and the engineers, have much longer days and tough ones. They are going to be the ones suffering much more.”

Formula 1 drivers embody a weird hybrid of athlete and astronaut. They are behind the steering wheel in a dangerous technological arms race that requires an army of highly skilled personnel behind them. F1 is a competitive and commercial challenge that has reached a new frontier in Las Vegas and shows no sign of slowing down soon despite the strain put on the drivers and teams.

It’s Monday, November 27, 2023 and this is Racing Recap, your summary of last weekend’s motorsports action. Formula One ended its season in Abu Dhabi with yet another Max Verstappen victory. Unlike F1, the MotoGP title fight went down to the season-ending Valencian Grand Prix. Pecco Bagnaia sealed his championship defense as contender Jorge Martin put himself and Marc Marquez in the gravel.

Mercedes Beats Ferrari For 2nd In Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a coronation run for Max Verstappen. Red Bull’s world champion won pole on Saturday, then led 52 laps of the 58-lap race en route to his 19th race win this season. Verstappen finished his year with an unprecedented total of 1,003 laps led, running out front for 75.7 percent of the time. No driver had surpassed the 70 percent threshold since Jim Clark in 1963.

Much of the race’s real intrigue was happening behind Verstappen as Ferrari and Mercedes battled for second in the World Constructors’ Championship. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was running in second behind Verstappen, but the head-to-head struggle was complicated by Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez. Ferrari needed George Russell to finish lower than third to beat Mercedes.

Perez was running third on the track, but behind Russell with a five-second penalty applied for colliding with McLaren’s Lando Norris. Leclerc decided it was in his team’s best interest to give the Red Bull driver a slipstream to try and pull away from the Mercedes. The ingenious tactic wasn’t enough, and Perez was classified just over a second behind Russell.

Race Results

1. – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. – Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – +17.993 seconds
3. – George Russell (Mercedes) – +20.328 seconds
4. – Sergio Perez (Red Bull) – +21.453 seconds
5. – Lando Norris (McLaren) – +24.284 seconds

Jorge Martin Crashes Out In MotoGP Finale

With a 21-point lead, Francesco Bagnaia was in prime position to defend the MotoGP World Championship in Valencia, Spain. The Ducati driver just needed to have an average race weekend, while his title rival Jorge Martin had to be spectacular. Martin qualified sixth but won the sprint race to claw the deficit down to 14 points.

Martin’s championship pursuit ended only after five laps on Sunday. The Pramac rider ran wide in Turn 4 and crashed in the gravel trap. Martin also collected Marc Marquez in his farewell outing with Repsol Honda. Bagnaia eventually won both the race and championship.

Race Results

1. – Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati)
2. – Johann Zarco (Pramac) – +0.360 seconds
3. – Brad Binder (KTM) – +2.347 seconds
4. – Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini) – +3.176 seconds
5. – Raúl Fernández (RNF) – +4.636 seconds

We talk about racing a lot here at Jalopnik, but one race never gets mentioned, and it’s one of the biggest travesties in the history of auto racing: the 2005 Piston Cup. The race between Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks and The King was a complete farce — riddled with terrible sportsmanship and even worse officiating.

I’ve always felt the race was a complete sham, but not until this TikTok video have I found someone as passionate as I am that Chick Hicks’ 2005 Piston Cup win should be vacated or have a huge asterisk put next to it (like the Astro’s 2017 World Series “win.” Those goddamn cheaters.)

Anyway, TikToker bayleyistrying laid out a comprehensive minute-and-a-half-long breakdown of just why the ‘05 Cup is a load of bullshit.

“The 2005 Piston Cup Final is the most corrupt event in sporting history,” he said right off the bat. It’s a strong start, but it’s also a very strong argument he’s about to make. He asserts that at “every single turn” the racing officials made dumb decisions that all — for the most part — seem to benefit Chick Hicks. Collusion or ineptitude? Hard to tell. Bayleyistrying asserts that there are five different times throughout the race where Hicks tries to literally kill McQueen and The King. How that doesn’t lead to a disqualification is beyond me.

Though to be fair, McQueen did benefit from stewards turning a blind eye as well. When he rejoins the race after pitting, he is well behind the safety car, but he speeds up at the end of pit lane to pass it. Dangerous move, Lightning.

Even with this transgression, the race was clearly Lightning’s to win, but he learned a whole bunch of important lessons from his buddies in Radiator Springs and stopped short of the finish line. At least, that’s one theory. Bayleistrying says McQueen actually did this “so everyone would know how shitty the officiating is.”

“A classy move by Lightning, but not something that shouldn’t have had to happen in any other sport,” he said in the video.

To make matters worse for the officiating team, there wasn’t even a review done after the race to make sure everything was kosher (which it wasn’t). This sort of racing malpractice is just inexcusable if you ask me.

“Chick Hicks is now a Piston Cup Winner — sullying the name of the Piston Cup,” he said.

Bayleistrying also wonders where Hicks was on January 6, and it’s a good question. He has the mustache and attitude of an insurrectionist.

“The fact that Chick Hicks is allowed to parade himself as a Piston Cup champion after 18 years of clear evidence that he completely cheated — it is astounding to me that a sport that wants to be taken seriously in this world cannot for a second consider that they might have been in the wrong,” Bayleistrying said to end his video.