2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix Heroes and Zeroes

[Jericoke]

Didn't watch it live.  I'm sure there are advantages to the race being run when it was run, but not for me.

Heroes
Max Verstappen, 4 times world champion.  He raced 'good enough', which is something that Max from 5 years ago would never have done.  He'd have fought for every inch of asphalt and would risk a DNF rather than let Hamilton, or anyone else, past.  He won't ever be my personal favourite driver, but far fewer reasons to hate a competent driver who understands his place in the sport.

George Russell.  He continues to risk being a 'potential world champion' if he never gets the car he needs.  Today he had the car he needed, and won resoundingly.  Perhaps things would have been different if Hamilton had started up front, but Russell won the race he was given, and he won it effortlessly. 

Lewis Hamilton.  He's no longer the man who can put in a perfect pole position on demand, but he's still capable of putting in a stunning race lap when called upon.  Like Verstappen, he knows his place in the sport, and is able to show he's one of the best when given the opportunity.

LeClerc and Sainz.  The Ferrari team is fraying at the seams a little, but the drivers weren't the problem this weekend.  They raced well, they worked together well.  The team just wasn't the support they needed.

Yuki Tsunoda.  A great race, I feel like today's race lived up to the fearless unrefined talent he showed early in his career.  Hopefully he can build on it.

Las Vegas Strip Circuit.  Like most, I don't feel like street races are great, usually they're parades with few passing opportunities.  Sure, this race is the flashiest of flashy races, but how many tracks, street or permanent, allow passing while running three wide?

Zeroes
Mistakes were made, but I don't know that anyone was far below expectations.  So these are zeroes only in so much as this is a heroes/zeroes post.

Alpine.  There's not a long of engine failures, so very disappointing for Gasly.  Extra 'zeroishness' for his team telling him his engine was just fine moments before it blew up.  Not being ready for Ocon's pit stop was weird.  Like there's 20 people that's their only job during the race?

Lawson and Colapinto.  They weren't 'bad' per se, but they weren't the world beating drivers that they've been earlier.  Colapinto's crash was a mess, but like others have said, it was mostly him pushing hard and making a hairs width mistake.  Rookies should be allowed that without judgment.

[Andy B]

Jeri is quite right and I am not a Vegas race fan but at least it enabled me to see a live race at a reasonable time.
I am puzzled that LL was left on hard rubber for 24 laps then 9 laps before the end they call him in and him back on hards again.
Good to see LH in race mode again.
MV's 4th was a forgone conclusion.
Where have McLaren gone?

[lkjohnson1950]

I want to recognise Gasly who somehow put the Alpine 3rd on the grid. He didn't have the race pace, could have been his engine was already going soft, but third on the grid is a great effort for a team that was floundering at the beginning of the season.

[Andy B]

I want to recognise Gasly who somehow put the Alpine 3rd on the grid. He didn't have the race pace, could have been his engine was already going soft, but third on the grid is a great effort for a team that was floundering at the beginning of the season.

Shame he had to retire!

[Dare]

Seems like there's  hard feeling at Ferrari over team orders now. I don't
blame Carlos one bit the way he was treated. It will be nice to  see how long the romance between Chas and Lewis last next year. Sparks will fly is my guess

[Alianora La Canta]

Heroes:

Experimental new marshal encouragement system - one of my friends was invited to marshal for the very first time at Las Vegas, in a system that is less restrictive than the previous one and also offers better-quality training. Some other marshals also did their first time marshalling at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. By all accounts I've heard, all the new starters acquitted themselves well and my friend has now been offered marshalling spots in 6 more races because she succeeded so well. This may be the most important contribution F1 has made to American motor sport for quite some time.

Gasly - got the Alpine to a place it really didn't belong. Unfortunately Alpine returned to type the next day.

Russell - won the race by a huge margin.


Zeroes

Border control - for nearly throwing Yuki Tsunoda out of the race because they couldn't understand that it is possible to be Japanese and a racing driver at the same time. Disgusting racial profiling.

Rui Marques (the new race director) - Two things:

1) Approving a marshal post being directly stuck onto a concrete block just after Turn 15. A marshal got bruising because of Colapinto crashing into the block, and it could easily have been worse. Yes, Grade 1 tracks can be designed that way, but that's an oversight meant to allow tracks with rarely-struck walls to be designed that way. Not for a wall that is at the exit of one of the toughest corners of a circuit known for its slippery surface.

2) Not permitting the stewards to issue an obvious penalty to Carlos Sainz for crossing the pit entry line (stewards can't rule on an issue that isn't referred to them, but Rui didn't even refer it to the stewards, and since the driver who broke the regulations and the sole beneficiary were on the same team, it wasn't like that team was going to spend money to make the stewards investigate…). I wish I could be surprised that the problems with race direction are bigger than simply who is in the seat.

Ferrari - should consider itself fortunate there was so much fail to choose from. It is quite a feat to make both one's drivers believe they are being disproportionately penalised for their driving. To me, it looked like Sainz disobeying instructions about allowing Leclerc past (even though Leclerc had released Sainz without issue earlier that stint), combined with the early pressure of the Ferraris and Russell being locked in combat, forced Leclerc to destroy his first set of tyres. Then Ferrari waited 2 laps too long to pit both drivers on the first stop. Sainz's argument with Ferrari about pitting (because he wore his second set a lot faster than Leclerc) led to a mutual kerfuffle on the second stop. After that, it seemed like Sainz had fallen out with his team enough to trigger the big disobedience… after which Leclerc stayed behind to protect his car and follow the team's instructions. It felt like a race where both drivers had a better idea of what was going on than anyone on the pitwall, and that's not a way to race successfully. Or keep any drivers happy.

[Dare]

Border control - for nearly throwing Yuki Tsunoda out of the race because they couldn't understand that it is possible to be Japanese and a racing driver at the same time. Disgusting racial profiling.


Wait till next year. Sainz and Alonso made be deported before the race. Were in
for 4 fun years here

[cosworth151]

Besides those mentioned above:

Heroes:

Haas - for regaining 6th spot in the Constructors' Championship

Zeroes:

Haas - Note to Ayao: Using Ferrari parts is OK but never, ever use Ferrari pit strategy. 

Las Vegas - The epitome of all that's wrong with F1 today. Overpriced, overglitzed, inaccessible and the race is just an inconvenient afterthought. Yes, they did manage to luck into a 3 wide pass. I've seen several of them over the years in Monaco at the Grand Hotel (a.k.a. Lowes, Station, etc) hairpin. I don't think many would call it a great corner.

[Alianora La Canta]

Wait till next year. Sainz and Alonso made be deported before the race. Were in
for 4 fun years here

On that logic, Border Control would throw Rui Marques out as well for being Portuguese, and then there would be no race… and probably no more FIA-run American Grands Prix…

[rmassart]

Well done to Max. Four in a row is quite an achievement.

Since Spain, RB have started struggling and the wins have been distributed evenly amongst the others: 5 for Mercedes, 4 for McLaren and 3 for Ferrari.

This gives me hope for next season - it could be great. And then they rejig the regulations for 2026 and one team will ace them and we will be back to domination. Why can't they keep the regs fixed. In the end everyone converges on the best design and we get some competitive racing...

[Alianora La Canta]

Aaand knocking Ferrari out of my top 3 zeroes, I just found out that Ben Sulayem fired a chief steward because he presented an appeal document about COTA's track invasion which suggested COTA did not take reasonable measures to prevent a track invasion (despite a different steward having written that line and the stewards collectively creating an amicable re-wording that changed it to simply observing the breach of regulation that enailed). He also fired the Formula 2 deputy director just as she was about to take over being the Formula 2 race director from Rui Marques for no known reason (Rui's now got to be race director for both F1 and F2). This means Ben Sulayem has fired 4 people in 2 weeks, resulting in an immediate staff shortage that is likely to impair the entire F1 schedule for the remaining two races and likely to put off anyone from going to senior roles who might have to present bad news or enforce the President's will.

[Dare]

Wait till next year. Sainz and Alonso made be deported before the race. Were in
for 4 fun years here

On that logic, Border Control would throw Rui Marques out as well for being Portuguese, and then there would be no race… and probably no more FIA-run American Grands Prix…

I was being sarcastic about the treat of deportations here but yes                               
Rui Marques too

[Alianora La Canta]

Wait till next year. Sainz and Alonso made be deported before the race. Were in
for 4 fun years here

On that logic, Border Control would throw Rui Marques out as well for being Portuguese, and then there would be no race… and probably no more FIA-run American Grands Prix…

I was being sarcastic about the treat of deportations here but yes                               
Rui Marques too

The US border control threw out Robert Kubica's race engineer back in 2008 because he was on the no-fly list by mistake, so the amount of sarcasm I can put into a border control threatening to kick someone is limited.