It has been well-documented that Formula 1’s presence in Las Vegas has not been the most well-received event. Before the weekend, local residents were not pleased about the disruptions; however, it has now translated to the race track itself. Carlos Sainz’s incident with the drain cover made people question the safety of the track in Las Vegas.
One of those people is Alpha Tauri driver [autotag]Daniel Ricciardo[/autotag]. Following FP2 on Friday morning, Ricciardo was asked whether Formula 1 has prioritized the “show” over track safety and gave a very interesting answer in return.
“It’s a fair question,” Ricciardo said. “We’re like, yeah it’s a late day, but two cars got ruined. Along with that there is a financial thing there for the teams, which is a big issue for them, but then you brought up the biggest issue which is safety.”
Now, this is something else from Danny Ric 😍#F1 #LasVegasGP pic.twitter.com/PsC9Dh7oMk
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 17, 2023
“So fortunately [Carlos Sainz] is OK, but those things could be greater — when I say greater I mean bigger consequences. I don’t know, I think it’s easy to say we did opening ceremonies and focused on other things and did they do their due diligence on the track? But with everything that happened today, you could ask some questions like did they do enough? That one for sure I can’t sidestep, that is a safety concern, and we’re here late but the safety one is something hopefully they will take pretty seriously.”
The safety of the drivers, crew members, and fans should be the top priority. On Thursday night, that was an issue that can’t happen again. Formula 1 will look to move forward with a new day as the sport is ready to hit the track for third practice and qualifying on Friday night.
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