F1’s sobering $1bn truth; why hands were tied over brutal penalty — Talking Points

You can have all the money in the world, but it won’t buy you time, love or happiness. Nor will it buy you secure drain covers, apparently. And it certainly doesn’t buy you common sense.

Formula 1’s billion-dollar Las Vegas extravaganza ground to a broken, sickening halt less than 10 minutes into first practice, throwing the entire day, the early hours of the next morning and perhaps the rest of the weekend into turmoil.

Carlos Sainz had run over a loose water valve cover that had freed itself from the road near the end of the long straight down the Strip. It ripped through the floor of his car, destroying his chassis and power unit in a multimillion-dollar calamity.

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He was lucky. It could have been so much worse had the projectile’s trajectory cut closer to the cockpit.

The session was called off shortly before 9pm local time for circuit safety checks, but that was just the start.

What came next was a series of events that saw Thursday night in Las Vegas last until 4am on Friday morning.

In the hours that followed Formula 1 burnt through a massive amount of goodwill in a masterclass of how not to handle a crisis.

The sport had hyped Las Vegas to astronomical heights. It was going to change what it meant to run a successful grand prix, the crowning achievement of owner Liberty Media’s vision for Formula 1 as a world-beating entertainment property.

It had openly mused with the idea that it could be the “greatest show on earth”.

But it went wrong almost as soon as it got started. And it never stopped going wrong.

The start of second practice was delayed indefinitely to allow the entire 6.2-kilometre circuit to be checked for more faults.

Eventually a ludicrous starting time of 2am was settled upon, with F1 confident civil engineering work would be completed in time.

The clock struck 2am, and the session was delayed by 15 minutes. Another 15 minutes passed, and the start time was set at 2:30am.

Formula 1 was desperate to get the session going. After all it had invested, the prospect of the first day of its Las Vegas project being written off was unthinkable.

And there were still fans in the grandstands, who had stuck around swilling expensive drinks and eating expensive food waiting for the action to resume — not to mention the VIP guests who were still being doted on in the hospitality suites, some of whom had paid $50,000 to be there.

But in a final and surely unforgivable twist, they were all sent home before the cars returned to the track.

The circuit suddenly decreed that gates would close at 1:30am. Spectators, including VIPs, didn’t have to go home, but they couldn’t stay here. Security guards had apparently reached the end of their shifts — something the sport apparently hadn’t foreseen during the hours of delays, seemingly leaving it without time to call in replacements.

It was only as the spurned fans exited the gates, their backs to the circuit, that teams fired up their cars.

It had been a nightmare first day at the office for Formula 1 as a race promoter.

‘WE F***ED UP’: SAINZ BEARS BRUNT OF ‘UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES’

Formula 1 has been determined that the sport show a united, positive face arriving in Las Vegas. It had spent big money to make it happen, and it fairly wanted teams and drivers to sell the message that setting up a race in the middle of the iconic city was a top-tier achievement — as it was. Mostly they obliged, with only Max Verstappen stepping out to criticise.

But decorum broke down spectacularly shortly after practice, with Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur using his slot in a press conference to blast the big-spending event for being unable to deliver a safe working environment.

“We damaged completely the monocoque, the engine, the battery,” he fumed. “I think it’s just unacceptable.

“It cost us a fortune. We f***ed up the session for Carlos. We won’t be part of FP2 for sure, we have to change the chassis and two-thirds of the car.

“Okay, the show is the show and everything is going well, but I think it’s just unacceptable for F1 today.”

Press conference moderator Tom Clarkson attempted to steer Vasseur towards a more positive discussion of the event, but Vasseur was having none of it, repeating only that the situation was unacceptable.

You can understand why. Not only had Sainz risked serious injury or worse, but Ferrari is up for a massive damage bill — and a grid penalty.

A chassis — both Sainz and Ocon will need new ones — costs around $1 million a pop. A new floor costs at least $200,000.

But the power unit is comfortably the most expensive component. By regulation they’re capped at around $20 million per set.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that teams won’t feel a need to replenish their pool of spares with only two grands prix remaining, which means there’ll be no cost cap impact.

But Sainz will cop a 10-place grid penalty for changing engine components.

Bizarrely the stewards noted in their ruling that they spent hours looking for a regulation that would allow them to let him off, but they had been unsuccessful.

“The stewards note that if they had the authority to grant a derogation in what they consider in this case to be mitigating, unusual and unfortunate circumstances, they would have done so; however, the regulations do not allow such action.”

Paddock rumours speculated that a unanimous vote among the teams might have been enough to turn a blind eye but that Mercedes had dissented. Mercedes and Ferrari are in a battle over second in the constructors standings.

Sainz got at least one small win, however. Drivers aren’t allowed to use two different chassis on the same day, which meant the Spaniard and Ocon would have been forced to sit out FP2 after tub changes.

But the unhinged starting time for 2:30am is of course the day after FP1 started, with action having got underway at 8:30pm the night before.

The loophole allowed both drivers to enter the session — just reward for the heroic work of their mechanics who prepared them new cars in such short notice.

WOLFF CALLS FOR CALM OVER ‘F***ING DRAIN COVER’

Some have enjoyed the schadenfreude of Formula 1’s much-hyped gamble falling flat, even suggesting that it had focused too much on spectacle at the expense of the sport in setting up its showpiece weekend.

Of course that would be unfair. F1 spent around $1 billion in preparing the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and much of that money has been spent specifically on sporting matters, including a comprehensive resurfacing of the track and other circuit work.

The core of the chaos was a single drain cover failure. It’s far from the first time that’s happened in Formula 1. Fellow street circuits Monaco and Azerbaijan have both experienced similar dangerous failures in the last decade, while even the permanent Sepang circuit in Malaysia has been afflicted by the same issue.

Drain covers and the like must withstand massive upwards force to be declared safe.

Ground effect aerodynamics reintroduced to Formula 1 last year mean most of the car’s downforce is generated by the floor. Downforce is achieved by creating a low-pressure zone between the bottom of the car and the track surface, sucking the car to the road.

But that also means the car acts like a vacuum for objects on the road — or, in this case, in the road. The low-pressure zone can suck up even the heaviest unsecured manhole covers, which can then cause immense damage to passing cars.

It doesn’t take a massive fault for disaster to strike. In this case it appeared to have been some weakened cement.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff felt strongly that the situation shouldn’t be overblown in the context of what Las Vegas was attempting to achieve as an event.

“How can you even dare try to talk back about an event that sets new standards for everything?” he said, shouting down a dissenting journalist in the press conference.

“And then you’re speaking about a f***ing drain cover that’s been undone. That’s happened before, that’s nothing.

“It’s FP1. Give credit to the people that have set up this grand prix, that have made this sport much bigger than it ever was.

“Liberty has done an awesome job. and just because in FP1 a drain cover has become undone, we shouldn’t be moaning.

“The car is broken. That’s really a shame for Carlos, it could have been dangerous.

“Between the track and the FIA and everybody, we need to analyse how we can make sure this is not happening again, but talking here about a black eye for the sport on a Thursday evening — nobody watches that [practice session] anyway European time.”

What it does highlight, however, is how difficult it is to simulate for the forces generated by an F1 car.

It was only around a month ago that F1 discovered partway through the Qatar Grand Prix weekend that the combination of the track’s new surface and new kerbs was destroying the Pirelli tyres, forcing the sport into mandating maximum stint lengths for the race.

F1 long ago dropped the requirement for new and updated tracks to host another major race to prove they’re fit to host a world championship round. Naturally that wouldn’t always possible with street circuits, but with F1 cars getting faster all the time, error tolerances are simultaneously narrowing, and there’s clearly room for improvement.

A MOCKERY MADE OF F1’S ‘NEW STANDARDS’

While Wolff’s point is fair, he made his comments before the shambolic attempt to start FP2 and before the sport unceremoniously punted fans and VIP guests into the cold night to fend for themselves.

This is the problem F1 will have to face when it rises bleary eyed for Friday qualifying.

Fan goodwill had already been tested by sky-high ticket prices and hotel price gouging.

Many punters were forced to watch on in frustration as the tickets they’d paid top dollar for were slashed in price as the sport grappled with a massive supply-demand mismatch in recent weeks.

They then had to do the same with their pre-booked hotel rooms, with rates tumbling as race day approached.

When first practice was abandoned after just nine minutes of action, they were told they would be taken care of.

“All tickets, food and beverage and entertainment options will continue to be honoured, and we remain focused on providing our patrons with a great experience,” the circuit said in a statement. “We appreciate the collaboration of the relevant event operations staff to ensure a safe and orderly egress of patrons if they choose to leave.”

In the end they weren’t given a choice. They were ejected after waiting around in the cold watching an empty track, with not even so much as a support category to keep them occupied.

Goodwill doesn’t last forever. It can’t be bought by opening ceremonies or fireworks shows or Elvis impersonators.

The drain situation was unfortunate. The delays were frustrating but necessary.

The sum of the response, however, was a disaster.

And unlike at other venues, F1 is on the hook in Vegas. It’s the event promoter. It runs the joint.

One thinks of the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, where just enough laps were completed in the pouring rain behind the safety car to call it a ‘race’.

The result declaration meant F1 didn’t need to refund the sanctioning fee, and that meant the local organisers — who sell the tickets — couldn’t offer refunds to fans without facing financial ruination. Formula 1 had its cake and ate it too.

But now the shoe is on the other foot.

It will surely face calls for refunds from disappointed fans. It will also deal with more frustration from Las Vegas locals for having closed key city arterials for extra hours on Friday morning, when many will have been preparing to go to work — or go home.

Its response shortly before 5am on Friday in Las Vegas was underwhelming, to say the least.

“With a full round of practice successfully completed, LVGP looks forward to providing a safe and entertaining race weekend for all,” it said.

In other words: all obligations have been met. All is well, nothing to see here.

There’s still time for Formula 1 to rescue this weekend with two flawless days of track action and, hopefully, an interesting and unpredictable race.

But it’s difficult to know whether its reputation has been irretrievably damaged by a fumbling Thursday in Las Vegas.