Tag: formula 1

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — A smile kept creeping onto Lando Norris’s face throughout post-race media sessions.

His maiden Formula One victory has been a long-time coming. He’s come close a couple of times, only to be foiled by small errors, like in Qatar 2023, and things out of his control, like the rain and strategy calls from Sochi 2021. He joined the F1 grid in 2019 with McLaren as a 19-year-old, and now in his sixth season and heading into the Miami Grand Prix weekend, the Briton had secured one pole position, stood on the podium 15 times, and driven over 6,000 laps.

As each driver stopped in the media pen for interviews, nearly every one touched on the same point: It’s about time.

“Well done to Lando,” Fernando Alonso said. “First win after so many podiums. I’m really happy for him. Hopefully he (remembers) this day — the first of many wins.” The Aston Martin driver wasn’t the only one who indicated that this wouldn’t be the final victory for the 24-year-old. Max Verstappen said, “I’m very happy for Lando. It’s been a long time coming. And it’s not going to be his last. He deserves it today.”

The victory came at a crucial moment in the sport. Over the last 28 grands prix, Red Bull has topped all but two races, Singapore 2023 and Australia 2024, both won by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. Verstappen has gone largely unchallenged, building a fairly decent lead race after race. But in Miami this weekend, McLaren took advantage of the chance it got to beat Red Bull in a straight fight. As Norris pulled ahead from Verstappen after the safety cars, it became a matter of fresh tires and clean air beating a wickedly fast car.

“I’m very happy for Lando. It’s been a long time coming. And it’s not going to be his last. He deserves it today,” Max Verstappen (left) said of Lando Norris (right). (Giorgio Viera / AFP)

“He’s deserving of a race victory probably many, many years ago,” Mercedes’ George Russell said. “And I think for all the drivers in Formula One in this era of dominance from one team and one driver, it’s always great to see somebody get that chance to score a victory.”

Norris started last year’s Miami GP 16th and finished P17 for a struggling McLaren, which turned its season around in the second half of 2023. Now, it has its first win in three years. Oscar Piastri said he was “very happy for (Norris) and for the whole team, and I think we deserve it. Our trajectory in the last 12 months has been towards this moment.”

Lewis Hamilton reminisced about his first F1 victory, which also was with McLaren, back in 2007. The team still has “a big part of my heart,” he said, and was happy to see them win again. The Woking-based crew’s last F1 victory was with Daniel Ricciardo at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

Before doing post-race interviews, it’s traditional for drivers to chat with their team briefly, crew members patting them on the helmet or back. Norris, though, launched himself over the barrier in joy, McLaren crew members equally as happy to embrace their new race winner. The emotion was overflowing.

A memory that will last a lifetime! 🧡#MiamiGP 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/N1t0dc7orD

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) May 5, 2024

“I’m just really happy for Lando. As much as we all want to beat each other and to come out on top, it’s always emotional to see so many emotions in one of your competitors,” Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said. “We have all grown up together. I remember looking at Lando when he was in KF3, and we all had this same dream of being a Formula One driver someday.”

Norris is no a stranger to hate, memes and nicknames like “Lando No Wins” popping up on social media as people discuss his record. But the Briton says the words from those closest to him hold more meaning, and thanked his competitors for their praise and support. In parc ferme and the media pen, different drivers embraced Norris, congratulating him on this moment he’ll likely remember forever.

“As much as when you put the helmet on, you hate them, and you want to beat them, and you don’t care who’s who, I’ve always had respect for the people I’ve raced against. So when anyone comes up [to me], especially people who have achieved a lot, because it always means a little bit more,” Norris said. “So when Lewis, Fernando, Max, Charles, Carlos, whenever they come up to you or people have good words for you, I appreciate those things a lot. Because from these people, it means something. Maybe from others, it doesn’t.

“From these people, they’re the people who know what it takes to achieve these types of things for the work, the time, the effort that goes into doing something like this.”

(Lead photo of Lando Norris and George Russell: Giorgio Viera / AFP)

Between the Racing Lines | Formula One is complicated, confusing and constantly evolving. This story is part of our guide to help any fan — regardless of how long they’ve watched the sport or how they discovered it — navigate the pinnacle of motorsports.

Box, box.

Every Formula One fan is familiar with that radio message, the call for a driver to head in for a pit stop. Whether it’s changing tires, serving a time penalty or repairing damage, the pit stop is one of the most strategically important moments during any grand prix. The longer you spend off the track, the farther behind you fall. McLaren holds the world record for the fastest pit stop — 1.80 seconds, set during the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix — but no team has matched the consistency of Red Bull’s blazing pace.

For each of the last six seasons, the Milton Keynes-based team has won the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award based on their stop times throughout the year. They should repeat in 2024, holding nine of the 10 fastest stops over the last five races. The top three came from the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, where Red Bull stunned the F1 world with two flawless double stacks, changing the tires on Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez’s cars in rapid succession. The first took 4.18 seconds; the second, 3.95 seconds.

Best double stack ever? 🤔⏱️#F1 || #ChineseGP 🇨🇳pic.twitter.com/V8iSDF7Y8e

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) April 21, 2024

Whether a routine stop or a double stack, pit stops are choreographed dances. They begin the moment activity buzzes in the garage as more than 20 team members hurry out to their positions in the pitlane, waiting for the drivers to pull into the box. As Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull’s Sporting Director, said, “Your perfect pitstop involves everyone having that perfect two seconds.”

It’s a game of millimeters and milliseconds. Here’s how it goes down.

The positions

Pit stops are a whirlwind of noise and speed, typically taking 2.5 seconds or less. The drivers need to hit their marks within the outlined area, and the crew members then jack up the front and back of the car, swap out the four wheels, and lower the car — all in unison when nailed perfectly.

“You get a buzz,” said Phil Turner, the team’s chief mechanic. “You get that adrenaline rush that you know you’ve had a good pit stop. You just tell by the sound, the noise, and how quick the car drops.”

It starts with the people, all of whom hold other team positions in addition to being on the pit crew. Teams are limited by how many people can be trackside, and some roles require people to be at computers when pit stops unfold. Wheatley described a pit stop as “an endeavor by 22 human beings.”

The wheels

Number of people: 12

This grouping is a trio per wheel — wheel off, wheel on and a wheel gunman. For wheel off and wheel on, strength is a requirement, said Jack Harrison, a mechanic on the team and a ‘wheel on’ member. Each wheel weighs over 44 pounds (20 kg). “You’ve got to have some sort of size to be able to manipulate the wheel to where you want it to be.”

The call is typically given around 15 seconds out, and the ‘wheel on’ crew carries the tires from the garage to the pit box. All three at the four tire locations crouch, and the wheel gunman readies to loosen and tighten the wheel nuts as the car slams to a halt. “I don’t ever think the car’s gonna hit me,” said wheel gunman Callum Adams. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it’s a matter of trusting the driver will stop where they’ve practiced. Adams’ favorite part of his role is his proximity to the car because when it’s dropped, he can see the clutch engage and the wheels spin.

What may surprise fans about the wheel off, wheel on process is that the wheel nut stays attached to the tire itself. The wheel gunman loosens the wheel nut before the car has stopped, Adams said, and they’re working “on the wheel nut for the new wheel before it’s even on the car. That’s where you make up the time.” The ‘wheel off’ crew member is taking the tire off as the car is coming off the ground, thanks to the jacks.

Jackmen

Number of people: 4

This grouping includes two main players: a front and rear jackman.

Because the cars are so low to the ground, both jacks need to lift at the same time. If the car stops short, front jackman Chris Gent said he struggles “to get the jack under the car because the car is so low, and the jack will only go under really when the car is on all four wheels.” If the rear jack lifts before the front, Gent says he has to signal for the car to be lowered to fit his jack under the car.

“It’s also awkward (if) they stop on the first few laps of a race when the car has a full amount of fuel, and then the car is so much heavier than whether it’s midway or towards the end,” Gent added. “It feels completely different to jack it up when it’s a lap or two into the race.”

Each jack is different, but Gent described his as one that can rotate and has two levers, one that releases the jack and the other that allows the jack to tilt.

“When the car arrives, we jack it up, and you can jack it to a certain point, and then you can relax because it has two little feet that come out so the car is always at the same height, which is obviously quite important for the gunmen,” Gent said. He later added that, in theory, the jackmen don’t have to pull the lever to release the jack, which drops the car to the ground, but he does so in case there is a failure in the lights system.

There are spare jackmen for both positions, just in case of an issue. If a front wing is damaged, teams will use a side jack instead and replace the wing.

Gent has been hit by a car before but “never any real damage other than being knocked back quite a long way.” When it comes to getting over the initial reaction to jump out of the way of a moving vehicle, Gent said, “A lot of it is down to trust, isn’t it?”

Car steadier 

Number of people: 2

When the car is lifted, two people grab hold of the cockpit area, keeping it stable as other crew members do their work. If needed, they may clean the mirrors or radiators.

Front wing adjuster

Number of people: 2

These crew members help make aerodynamic changes to the wing, which impact understeer or oversteer based on the driver’s feedback.

Lollipop (aka the green light) 

This resembles how NASCAR teams hold out a sign as drivers enter the pit box. Within the world of F1, this individual would give the signal for when the car can release, but over time, it’s become more electronic. A system now indicates when the driver can leave the pit box.

The guns and jacks are essentially linked to a traffic light system of sorts, but the decision of when the car is released lies with the crew member with the override button, who monitors pit lane traffic. The green lights indicate the wheels are secure, and once there is space for a safe release, the driver gets the go-ahead to exit the pit box. If the stewards deem a pit box exit to be unsafe release, drivers may face a five-second time penalty.

The practice

Teams practice pit stops during a race weekend, and fans can watch from pit lane or their seats during certain windows. But these sessions also take place back at the factory, both in and out of the season. Harrison said Red Bull will practice anywhere from five to 20 pit stops during these sessions. Wheatley commented how, with Red Bull, “your first pitstop is likely to be for a race win.”

However, as Harrison noted, there is work that is done before a “real physical practice,” like what fans see during a race weekend. Whether it’s with the entire crew or just the specific group, like the corner crews, they’ll visualize the pit stops with props. Harrison said, “We’ll be using those to be able to help you. Even just with the movements, not necessarily the weight of the wheel.” It’s about being limber and warming up for the real deal.

Practicing with the entire pit stop team is easier, he said, because a big component of an efficient stop is listening to each other. As part of the corner crew, he finds it helpful to hear the jackmen and the four-wheel guns, but he can also see the different parts of the pit stop in his peripheral vision. Each grouping has slightly different techniques, so practicing with the same people becomes a strength.

“The size of people doesn’t make a difference,” Harrison said. “The amount of time you’ve been doing it with the same people makes a difference because I will put my foot in a certain position, which may be different to the left rear side. I’ll wedge my foot underneath the (wheel) gunman’s knee, and then I can feel where he moves. And then with sight as well, I can see where he moves so I can move to him.

“So if the car goes long or short, he’ll move his body to react to that, whereas I’ll do the same with my body to where his body moves.”

Given the length of the F1 season and because life happens, teams do select backups for each position. During practice, people swap in and out.

As for physical requirements, Harrison said core strength, stability, overall strength, and cardio are all key, and the crew works towards staying nimble. For the wheel on position, for example, core and leg exercises are helpful because you’re essentially in a squat position, waiting to fit the wheel to the car, Harrison said. Adams said that flexibility and core strength are important for the wheel gunman because if the car stops short or long, they need to adjust quickly while being low to the ground, not losing their balance.

An effective pit stop extends beyond the physical. It’s about the senses and muscle memory. The Milton Keynes-based team decided to try executing a pit stop in complete darkness during the off-season, and Adams said, “It made everyone sort of realize how much their role was done on feel and muscle memory.”

The final product

A pit stop technically begins the day before a race, Wheatley said.

That’s when the team discusses race strategy. Come race day, he’ll brief the team if there could be something unusual coming, and they’ll perform a series of stops during their routine practice session, mixing it up some to prepare. During the race, Wheatley keeps the team up to speed on how the race is unfolding strategically. Pit stops are about nailing the right timing, such as trying to do the opposite strategy of a rival to gain positions. Wheatley said, “Generally, we make a decision to pit, I think, later than some teams would be comfortable with. We like to have a team that can react very quickly and in a very short lead time ahead of a pit stop.”

When it looks like the call to pit is coming, Wheatley begins preparing the team, not getting too excited. “If I’m calm, everyone should be calm.”

Then comes the countdown. The crew members file out of the garage in a specific order to avoid getting in each other’s way, Gent said. Typically, the farthest people will leave first, he added, “so you’re not climbing over people to get to your position.”

Any number of things could go wrong during a pit stop, like a wheel gun failure (which is why they have spares). Mistakes do happen, like jacks not engaging properly on the first try. But as much as a smooth pit stop depends on the crew members, it’s also about the driver’s approach, specifically “the speed and consistency of deceleration into the pit box,” Wheatley said. If drivers don’t hit their marks, the other twenty-some crew members will need to adjust. That awareness also applies to the crew, particularly with the group changing the wheel. Sometimes the tires touch during the swap, and as Wheatley said, “When they touch, that’s when you get your 2.6-second stop and not a 2-second stop or a 1.8-second stop. So it’s down to marginal gains from that point.”

Another factor that can impact timings is the depth of the pit crew. In 2023, Wheatley said, Red Bull “faced immense challenges” with keeping a consistent first team because of the number of races, where they fell on the calendar, illness (a stomach bug floated around the Mexico City paddock, for example), and other life matters, like children being born. This is where the reserves come into play.

“Whilst it doesn’t mean you can do a 1.8-second pit stop every weekend, that’s not actually our target,” Wheatley said. “And so we need to have enough people trained and able to do 2.2-second pit stops every single time the car comes in the pits. And we’ve been lucky enough that we haven’t had such an illness that’s compromised that.”

At the heart of every pit stop are the people and the seamless teamwork. Each person’s routine is different, down to whether they watch the car come down pit lane or when they snap down their visor. Then comes the rhythm — stop, lift, wheels (and the loud whirring that comes with the guns), drop and release. Pit stops are a staple of an F1 grand prix weekend, yet each person describes the strategic event differently.

Turner opted for “a massive adrenaline rush.” Adams described them as “exhilarating” while Harrison chose “rewarding.”

Truthfully, it’s an art.

(Graphics by Drew Jordan/The Athletic. Lead image: Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic)

Susie Wolff’s quiet confidence is evident the moment you meet her.

She’s ambitious and bold, not afraid to fight for something she believes in. And when her character came into question when the FIA launched an inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest last year, Wolff pushed back, filing a criminal complaint last month in relation to the governing body’s statements.

To understand why she’s pursuing legal action, one first must understand Wolff herself, a woman whose name has become synonymous with the fight for women in motorsport. Born Susie Stoddart, the Scot has worn many hats over the years, navigating the motorsport ranks as a driver before entering the management side, now serving as the managing director of the all-women series F1 Academy.

Wolff’s story is one defined by tenacity, starting from a small town in Scotland and morphing into a journey of showing how women belong and can be successful in what’s still considered “a man’s world.”

“Someone said to me many years ago, dream and dream big. But always have a plan because of a dream without a plan, that’s called a wish,” she said in Las Vegas last year. “You need to know how you’re gonna achieve your dreams and have the tenacity to make them happen.”

The rise of a ‘calculated’ risk taker

Wolff found her passion for racing early in life.

Her parents met when her mother, whom Wolff describes as “a daredevil in her own right,” bought her first motorbike from Wolff’s father, who owned a motorcycle shop and raced in the biking world. But Wolff, a self-described “calculated” risk taker, fell in love with the world of four-wheel racing and started karting competitively by age eight. By 13, she dreamed of being a racing driver.

But how was a different issue.

“I remember, I finished 15th in the world karting championships, and the idea of trying to move into single-seaters was, for me, like climbing Mount Everest,” Wolff said. “Where to start? How to get a good team? How to raise the budget?”

She was 18 at the time. Before jumping into the racing world full-time, she began studying international business at the University of Edinburgh but only stayed a year. Wolff headed to race in Formula Renault UK championship. To afford the jump from karting to single-seaters, she got creative. “I spent my student loan on a Formula Renault test day,” she said. “(It’s) the same struggle that many drivers have, not just female drivers. I had a great family background, but we didn’t have the financial means to get me racing.”

Wolff found a sponsor and competed in Formula Renault UK from 2001 to 2004, securing three podium finishes during that span and two nominations for British Young Driver of the Year. She advanced to British F3 in 2005 and competed alongside drivers like Bruno Senna, the nephew of the late Ayrton Senna and eventual WEC world champion in the LMP2 class. She scored points in her debut but saw her season disrupted when she broke her ankle.

Wolff lost her seat in F3 and her sponsor after the injury. “That could have been a moment where I said, ‘OK, this is not going to work,’ and it was also quite hard financially to pay the rent at the end of every month.” She described that period as “the darkest time of not just my career but my life because I really lost all the momentum.”

Then the phone rang.

During the Autosport Awards one year, when she was nominated for British Young Driver of the Year, Wolff caught the eye of Mercedes-Benz. It led to a testing opportunity. “It was one test in DTM, with Mercedes-Benz, that changed the course of my whole life.” DTM stands for Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, a German series of touring cars. Wolff was initially offered only a one-year contract. She stayed for seven seasons, securing multiple top-10 finishes across several campaigns (the best race result being seventh in 2010).

Susie and her now-husband, Toto Wolff, met in 2007 while she was competing in DTM. Toto was an investor in the company that manufactured the DTM cars for Mercedes. The couple married in 2011, when Susie was still competing in DTM and he hadn’t joined F1 yet. “I always said I would never get married before I’m 30, and for Toto, I broke that rule, and I was 29.”

Prior to him entering her life, she went through what she described as “an unhealthy period where it was only about racing, and then my whole self-worth was wrapped up in my race results.” As she got older, she became more confident.

Reaching the pinnacle

DTM became Wolff’s big break, but she didn’t completely walk away from open-wheel racing. She joined Williams as a development driver in 2012 and committed to the F1 team full-time the following year. The world she was entering, though, still was male-dominated. Only a handful of women have made it to F1, and sexist comments still arose.

It had been over two decades since a woman drove on track in an F1 grand prix weekend. Giovanna Amati tried and failed to qualify for several races in the 1992 season after being several seconds slower than competitors. After that, no woman came close for years. During the 2014 British Grand Prix weekend, that changed when Wolff made a practice outing. Another followed during the German GP weekend that same season, and Wolff was just two-tenths of a second off of 11-time grand prix winner Felipe Massa’s lap time.

As a driver for Williams, Wolff became the first woman in years to participate in an F1 weekend, in 2014. (David Davies/PA Images via Getty Images)

Looking back on her F1 chapter, she said, “I definitely wasn’t the most talented, but I had an incredible amount of tenacity. And that got me pretty far.” Her role with Williams expanded in 2015, which included testing responsibilities and two more practice outings, but she retired in the fall of that same season, stepping away from driving entirely.

“I didn’t want to carry on as a test driver for another year. I was very conscious that I didn’t also just want to be known as an ex-racing driver,” Wolff said. “As a sports person, you always know there has to be the next chapter, and I wanted to be in control of when I started that chapter.”

Championing women in motorsports

Dare To Be Different was Wolff’s way of giving back to motorsports in her next chapter. She founded and launched the initiative in 2016 in collaboration with The Motor Sports Association, aiming to increase female participation on all levels of the sport, not just on track and in the driver’s seat.

“I’ve only ever done one interview in my whole career where I wasn’t asked about my gender, and I felt that I had to do something because of this idea that I was always the only (one),” she said. “I felt it was passing the baton on to the next generation, letting them learn from what I’ve done, right? Avoid the mistakes that I made and just make sure that the sport could be more diverse long term because I didn’t see any reason why you couldn’t be successful with a woman in sport.”

Wolff had been an ambassador for the “She’s Mercedes” campaign and was honored in 2017 as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her contributions to women in sports. While working behind the scenes and helping break down barriers, a new racing opportunity arose.

Her formal step into team ownership and management came in the form of Formula E, the electric car single-seater series. She became team principal and a shareholder of ROKiT Venturi Racing in 2018, but that wasn’t her first contact with the team. When she was still driving, Venturi had reached out about a possible Formula E drive. In 2021, Wolff was promoted to CEO, and Venturi finished second in the 2021/2022 season, just 24 points shy of Mercedes.

Wolff had a brief but successful run in Formula E racing, as the ROKiT Venturi Racing team principal. (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)

But the noise about her being the only woman in the room continued to follow Wolff, something she admits annoyed her during the Formula E chapter. “I felt that I was just one of the 12 team principles, but there, I did what I always do. I just focused on performance and nearly won the world championship.”

Wolff announced in Aug. 2022 that she was stepping down ahead of the team’s partnership with Maserati. She didn’t just walk away from Formula E, though.

“When I finished in Formula E, I just chose to stop talking about women in motorsport. Even in my last two years, all the requests I got, I tried to let other women within my team do them, to kind of shine the limelight on other women, not just me all the time,” Wolff said.

“I really felt like I said everything that needed to be said… All these panel discussions you get invited to, the same discussions, the same topics, and I just felt I’ve done all I can do now. And that’s why I was very convinced that I need to move into a different industry and find a new challenge.

“But then F1 Academy popped up.”

F1 Academy is the all-women junior racing series that’s part of F1’s pyramid and competes in F4 machinery. Wolff joined the series as managing director in March 2023, over a month before the inaugural season opened in Austria. “I kind of feel in this role, we’re not talking anymore. We’re reacting.” Wolff added that talking about women in motorsports doesn’t “frustrate” her because it helps not just the F1 Academy drivers but also those who may be watching.

“At my stage in life, I (have) 25 years of (being a) racing driver, I ran my own team, I know this paddock really well. I have no qualms to go up and ask for what I think needs to be asked for, and I have no problem to hustle and get my elbows out if I feel that I need to fight for something,” Wolff said, explaining why she took the role. “So from that perspective, I think it really was that opportunity linked with a passion to make this sport more diverse and to give opportunity to more talented women.”

She later added that there are days when it doesn’t feel like any progress is being made, and others where change is evident. More than Equal, a not-for-profit initiative that focuses on growing female participation in the sport, conducted research in recent years about the gender gap in motorsport, and found only 51 percent of survey respondents knew women could compete in F1.

F1 Academy also poses an entrepreneurial challenge for Wolff. “As much as some people kind of sometimes say to me, ‘Oh, you’re on such a crusade,’ I’m not only on a crusade for women in motorsport. ​​I’m also on a crusade to build this into a sustainable business model which flies.”

Guiding the next generation

Wolff isn’t one to back down, as evidenced by her taking legal action against the governing body. As her husband, Toto, told Sky Sports last month, “Susie is a strong woman; she doesn’t take anything from anyone and has always followed through on her convictions and values, and that’s the case here. She’s very unemotional about it and pragmatic. She feels wrong was done, and the court needs to hear that. Nothing’s going to bring her off that paths, that’s how her character is.”

When the FIA announced its investigation into the alleged conflict of interest, it didn’t name the Wolffs. The governing body said its compliance department was looking into the “media speculation centered on the allegation of information of a confidential nature being passed to an F1 team principal from a member of FOM personnel.” But F1, Susie Wolff and Mercedes released statements denying the allegations.

Wolff’s initial statement didn’t focus purely on the claims but rather on the bigger picture. “It is disheartening that my integrity is being called into question in such a manner, especially when it seems to be rooted in intimidatory and misogynistic behavior and focused on my marital status rather than my abilities.”

The FIA dropped the matter a few days later, but as Wolff highlighted in a subsequent statement, she felt the damage had already been done. “When I saw the statement issued by the FIA yesterday evening, my first reaction was: ‘Is that it?’ For two days, insinuations have been made about my integrity in public and through background briefings, but nobody from the FIA has spoken to me directly,” she said in a Dec. 8 statement, adding that she “received online abuse about my work and my family.”

“I might have been collateral damage in an unsuccessful attack on somebody else or the target of a failed attempt to discredit me personally, but I have worked too hard to have my reputation called into question by an unfounded press release.”

After a long career that now includes helming F1 Academy racing, Wolff is among the most respected members of the F1 paddock. (Alex Pantling – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

There’s no question that much of the F1 paddock thinks highly of Wolff. When discussing her complaint during an Australian GP press conference, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown called her “one of the most respected people in motorsport.” Lewis Hamilton said that same weekend, “Hopefully, this stand that she’s taking now will create change, will have a positive impact, and especially for women. It is still a male-dominated sport.”

And the seven-time world champion is right. The number of women participating in motorsport has been static for some time, but series like F1 Academy, teams like the all-women Iron Dames and women like Wolff aim to change that as they inspire generations. The Scot has spent her career navigating the racing ranks as a driver, running a race team and championing women in motorsports. She knows and experienced the challenges and pressures of this space; it’s part of her mission to show there are opportunities up for grabs.

That’s why when asked what advice she had for young women, Wolff didn’t skip a beat. After all, there were moments from her career when she wished she could have carried more confidence.

“Believe in yourself. Don’t be scared to speak up when your voice needs to be heard. Don’t feel like you always need to be heard,” Wolff said last November. “But in the moment, you need to be heard, have that inner belief and confidence to stand up for yourself, to put yourself forward, and figure out where you want your path to go.

“Don’t allow others to dictate your path. Be strong to know what your path is, what your direction is, and, and lean on others when you need help.”

Wolff easily could have walked away from the industry. Motorsports remain a male-dominated environment with very few women in high profile roles, but Wolff’s new chapter zeroes in on changing that perception, with F1 Academy extending beyond just being a racing series and focusing on the motorsport pipeline, too.

But the Scot’s story was never about a crusade. It was about a simple dream that morphed into a plan.

“I never set out on a mission to prove what a woman could do in a man’s world. I love racing. I love the competition. I love the racetrack and the environment. I love that it pushes you out of your comfort zone. And now I’m on a mission to definitely make sure that more women realize the opportunities within motorsport.”

GO DEEPER

Japanese GP track breakdown: Suzuka is all rhythmic flow and old-school charm

(Lead image of Susie Wolff: Clive Mason, Jared C. Tilton/F1, Ker Robertson / Getty Images; Design: John Bradford / The Athletic)

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JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Christian Horner believes it is time to “move on” and put the focus back on Formula One’s on-track action, saying that is “where the spotlight should be.”

But amid the continued aftermath of the allegations against the Red Bull Racing team principal over inappropriate behavior and further off-track controversies concerning the FIA, the sport remains under a cloud.

Horner was speaking on Thursday in the FIA press conference ahead of this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, just hours after it emerged that Red Bull Racing had suspended with pay the female complainant who made the allegations.

The grievance made against Horner was dismissed following an investigation conducted by a King’s Counsel (KC), an independent investigator. According to a person briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the complainant’s suspension links to the findings of the investigation.

Asked by The Athletic about the suspension, Horner said he “can’t comment on anything confidential between an employee and a company.”

The “move on” comment came during a 30-minute press conference that was dominated by questions to Horner, who said: “The time now is to look forward and to draw a line under it.” He spoke of it being a “very trying” period for him and his family, against whom he said the “intrusion” had to end. (Horner’s marriage to Geri Halliwell-Horner, a former member of the Spice Girls, has prompted increased media coverage, particularly in the UK.)

Horner recognized that a set of anonymously leaked messages, allegedly sent between him and the complainant, that emerged last week had “garnered an awful lot of coverage.” (Last week, he declined to comment on what he called “anonymous, speculative messages from an unknown source.”)

“It’s all been focused very much in one direction,” Horner said. “What has happened then after that is others have looked to take advantage of that. Unfortunately, Formula One is a competitive business and obviously elements have looked to benefit from it. That’s perhaps the not so pretty side of our industry.”

One recurring question about the case has centered on the lack of transparency and details from Red Bull, something highlighted last week by two of Horner’s rival F1 team bosses, Toto Wolff of Mercedes and Zak Brown of McLaren. “I believe that with the aspiration as a global sport on such critical topics it needs more transparency,” Wolff said. “I wonder what the sport’s position is.”

In announcing the outcome of the investigation, Red Bull GmbH, Red Bull Racing’s parent company, said the report was “confidential” and that it would “not be commenting further out of respect for all concerned.” It means details of the allegations and the grounds upon which the grievance was dismissed remain unknown.

Horner highlighted that confidentiality when asked about the need for transparency, particularly given the subject matter in an era when F1 has been pushing for improved inclusivity, and has enjoyed an influx of new, young female fans.

Horner called it a “complicated issue” before noting that it was an internal matter at Red Bull, and that the process was “confidential between the individuals and the company itself.”

“I’m not at liberty, unfortunately due to those confidentiality, and out of the respect to the company and of course the other party, that we’re all bound by the same restrictions,” Horner said. “So even if I would like to talk about it, I can’t, because of those confidentiality restrictions.”

He said it was “not an FIA issue” and “not a Formula One issue,” but a “company-employee issue, and that would be the same in any major organization.”

The FIA, F1’s regulator, has shown zero sign of getting involved in the matter. While the FIA’s president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, told the Financial Times in Bahrain last week that this situation was “damaging the sport,” he also said he did not want to “jump the gun” and commence any investigation through the FIA’s compliance or ethics department.

On Thursday, when The Athletic approached the FIA for comment about Red Bull’s decision, a spokesperson said they were surprised to have been asked about what they called “a team employment matter,” and instead suggested contacting F1. A spokesperson for F1 itself declined to comment.

The FIA, meanwhile, has its own issues. Its compliance department is investigating its president, Ben Sulayem, over allegations he interfered in the result of last year’s Saudi Arabian GP, as first reported by BBC Sport. The FIA has said it “received a report detailing potential allegations involving certain members of its governing bodies” and it was “assessing the concerns.”

BBC Sport subsequently reported Ben Sulayem was also being investigated for allegedly wishing to prevent the certification of the Las Vegas circuit. An FIA spokesperson said that “from a sporting and safety perspective, the Las Vegas circuit approval followed FIA protocol in terms of inspection and certification. “If you recall, there was a delay in the track being made available for inspection due to ongoing local organizer construction works.” The same spokesperson also highlighted an interview given by Ben Sulayem to GP Racing magazine last November, where he explained his support for green-lighting the Las Vegas track layout.

All four team principals in Thursday’s press conference — Horner and Krack were joined by Williams’ James Vowles and Bruno Famin of Alpine — were asked about the investigations into the FIA president. Famin said we should focus on what is happening on the track. Krack said from Aston Martin’s point of view, the matter was “clear and closed.” Vowles said he was pleased a process was in place, and “as far as I understand, it’s in review, which is the right thing.”

The investigations mark the latest in a long line of controversies to involve the FIA president. But Horner urged people to not “preempt the facts”.

“There needs to be an investigation,” Horner said. “And I’m sure the relevant parties, and again the process that they have within the statutes of the FIA will be followed.

“All I would urge is don’t prejudge. Wait for the facts. Wait to see what is the reality before coming to a judgment.”

As much as Horner may want the focus to be “on the track and going racing” in F1, the ongoing turmoil reflects badly on the sport. There’s no escaping that. The past three weeks have seen it reach not only the back page of the newspapers, but the front pages, too. People are talking about F1 for the reasons the sport does not want.

“It definitely doesn’t look good to the outside world, from the outside looking in,” said Lewis Hamilton on Wednesday. “It’s a really, really important time for the sport to show and stick to their values, hold ourselves accountable for our actions.” He called it a “really, really pivotal moment” for F1, for the message it sends out to the rest of the world.

“I hope it’s not a year that it continues to go on with this,” Hamilton said. “It highlights some of the issues we also have in the sport, when we are talking about diversity and inclusion that includes gender, for example, and making people feel comfortable in this environment is key. And that’s clearly not the case.”

Horner is right in saying the on-track action is “where the spotlight should be” for F1. But so long as these questions and doubts remain, that spotlight will remain elsewhere.

(Lead photo of Christian Horner and Mohammed Ben Sulayem at the Bahrain Formula One GP: ANDREJ ISAKOVIC / AFP))

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Fractures within Red Bull Racing appear to have grown after Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, warned the team was “in danger of being torn apart” if Christian Horner remained in charge amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the team principal.

Horner remains in the spotlight after a turbulent few days in Bahrain to start the new Formula One season. Although Verstappen scored his eighth consecutive grand prix victory with a dominant display, beating teammate Sergio Pérez by over 20 seconds, his father spoke publicly about divisions within the team as the situation remains the biggest story in the sport.

The situation became public in early February when Red Bull GmbH, Red Bull Racing’s parent company, announced it had launched an investigation into allegations made against Horner of inappropriate behavior, which it said it took “extremely seriously.”

On Wednesday, Red Bull announced that the investigation, conducted by an outside party, had led to the grievance being dismissed, noting the complainant had the right to appeal. The next day, a cache of messages allegedly between Horner and the female complainant was anonymously leaked to high-ranking F1 officials and the international media. The Athletic, which received the email leak directly, has not been able to verify the contents, and Horner has repeatedly declined to comment on the messages.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Jos Verstappen warned: “There is tension here while (Horner) remains in position. The team is in danger of being torn apart. It can’t go on the way it is.

“It will explode. He is playing the victim when he is the one causing the problems.”

Jos Verstappen raced in F1 between 1994 and 2003 and has been central to his son’s career and success, though he has no formal role on the team. He made similar comments about the controversy in a separate interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, also published Saturday night after the race.

Asked about Verstappen’s comments, a Red Bull spokesperson said, “There are no issues here, the team are united and we are focused on racing.”

Tensions escalate

Jos Verstappen’s comments publicly put the father of the team’s star driver in opposition to its team principal.

He attends the vast majority of his son’s races. Although he is not an employee of Red Bull Racing, his closeness with Max means he is regarded to hold a certain degree of influence. On Thursday, he was seen wearing a Red Bull team jacket while watching the second practice session in Bahrain, during which the anonymous email was circulated.

After the race, Horner said he was “not going to comment on what motives, whatever person may have” for the leak.

Jos denied to both the Daily Mail and De Telegraaf that he was involved in the leak, telling the Daily Mail, “That wouldn’t make sense. Why would I do that when Max is doing so well here?”

There have been growing suggestions of friction within the team ever since the death of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz in October 2022. Mateschitz was the undisputed leader of the company’s F1 efforts, and his absence has led to increased tensions between senior figures within the company.

Following the race, Horner said he was “absolutely” confident he would remain in charge of the team and that his “focus is on the season ahead and the races we have ahead” after the completion of the investigation process.

“The grievance that was raised was dismissed,” Horner said. “End of. Move on.”

He said it had “not been pleasant, the unwanted attention,” but spoke of the “tremendous support” he felt from within the team and the wider Red Bull company.

On the grid ahead of the race, Horner spoke with Chalerm Yoovidhya, the son of the Red Bull co-founder, whose family holds a 51% shareholding in Red Bull GmbH. Horner and his wife, Geri Halliwell-Horner, were joined by Yoovidhya and his wife to watch the podium celebrations after Max Verstappen’s victory. Jos stood a couple of rows behind them during the ceremony.

Max Verstappen has maintained throughout the investigation into Horner that he is fully focused on what is happening on the track and that the situation has not distracted him from his preparations for the new season.

Asked by The Athletic after taking pole position on Friday whether he still had full faith in Horner’s leadership, Verstappen said: “When I look at how Christian operates within the team, he has been an incredible team boss.

“So absolutely, from the performance side of things, you can’t even question that.” Verstappen said he spoke “a lot” to Horner and that the Red Bull team principal was “fully committed to the team.”

His father’s comments, nevertheless, will lead to fresh questions about the dynamic with Horner ahead of the second round of the season in Saudi Arabia in a few days.

Max is under contract at Red Bull until 2028 after signing one of the longest and most lucrative contracts in F1 history following his maiden championship success in 2021.

The nature of the brewing tension at Red Bull led to Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff (who has called for transparency in the probe) being asked if there was a chance Verstappen could drive for the team for 2025 as a replacement for Lewis Hamilton.

Wolff said: “A driver will always choose the quickest car. That is fundamentally what it is all about. At the moment, Red Bull is the quickest car, so that will in my opinion, that will always be the priority.”

(Lead photo of Max Verstappen with his father Jos Verstappen ahead of the Bahrain GP: Clive Mason/Getty Images)

It’s the end of an era — and the biggest driver move in Formula One history.

After 12 seasons, six world championships and 82 race wins, Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes for Ferrari.

It’s a day most thought would never come. Hamilton himself said last year he expected to remain with Mercedes “til my last days”, and there was “no place I would rather be.”

But the appeal of a shock move to Ferrari, announced for 2025 on Thursday, proved too strong for the seven-time champion seeking a record-breaking eighth world title.

It’s the kind of move F1 fans — and the figures at the top of the sport itself — could have only dreamed of ever happening. Partnering Hamilton, F1’s most famous and successful driver, with Ferrari, F1’s most famous and successful team, is box office stuff.

Ferrari will likely enter the 2025 season with the strongest lineup in F1 as Hamilton races alongside Charles Leclerc, its young star. As ‘superteam’ lineups go, short of the implausible prospect of Hamilton teaming up with Max Verstappen, it’s hard to think of any bigger.

Regardless of the outcome, this will be one of the defining stories in F1 for the next couple of years as the 39-year-old Hamilton bids to write the latest — and potentially final — chapter of his glittering F1 career in Ferrari’s famous red cars.

But why quit Mercedes on the eve of the new season, for a team that hasn’t won a championship in 15 years?

Since winning his first drivers’ championship with Mercedes (the second of his career), Hamilton has been inextricably linked with the Silver Arrows. (Darren Heath/Getty Images)

A loss of faith in Mercedes?

Hamilton and Mercedes formed one of the greatest teams the sport has ever seen.

Six of Hamilton’s seven world titles arrived between 2014 and 2020, his only defeat in that stretch coming to teammate Nico Rosberg in 2016. Together Hamilton and Mercedes dominated F1, seeing off the threat of Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel, once vaunted as the combination that could put an end to years of silver success through 2017-20.

Hamilton came within one correct decision by race control at the 2021 finale in Abu Dhabi from breaking Michael Schumacher’s record and winning an eighth world title, only for Verstappen to pass him on the final lap restart and deny him the crown.

The controversy put Hamilton on a redemption arc. Fuelled by that heartache, 2022 became the season he was due to reclaim what should’ve been his — only for Mercedes to build a car that simply wasn’t up to the job. Hamilton knew from the moment he first drove the W13 it wasn’t good enough to win a title. It wasn’t even good enough to win a race, resigning him to the first season of his F1 career without a single victory.

The struggles continued through last year. Hamilton was often frustrated by the limitations of his car, leaving him to endure another winless season as Verstappen and Red Bull dominated proceedings. After the last race of the year in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton summed up his mood as “not great” and cast doubt on anyone catching Red Bull in 2024: “You can pretty much guess where they’re going to be next year.”

Hamilton’s fortunes have dipped since winning his seventh drivers’ championship came in 2020. (Salih Zeki Fazlioglu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Mercedes had already set about overhauling its car for 2024, having ditched its radical ‘zeropod’ concept midway through last year. Expectations were being managed, but there was greater confidence from the team that the car coming out of Brackley this year would not carry the same “spiteful” traits, to quote technical director James Allison, and that it would give Hamilton a better chance of success.

Hamilton won’t get an extended run in the Mercedes car until preseason testing begins in Bahrain later this month. A first taste will come in a shakedown at Silverstone when the car is launched on Feb. 14, and Hamilton will have driven a model in the simulator which can give an indication of what to expect. But there won’t be a true understanding of the W15 car’s potential until he drives it for real.

The decision to jump ship now suggests doubt in Mercedes’ ability to change course and get back to the summit from which it once looked down on the F1 competition. Were Hamilton fully confident Mercedes was the place to be to win the eighth title he craves, he wouldn’t consider going elsewhere, particularly given the emotional ties he has with the team.

It will give Hamilton and Mercedes a ‘long goodbye’ through 2024, one final year together to try and succeed. But there will also be the awkwardness of the team planning for the post-Hamilton era without his involvement, gradually phasing him out of top-level meetings.

What Ferrari can offer

This is the big question mark over the move. Mercedes has shown few signs of being able to seriously challenge for a championship in the past two years — yet neither has Ferrari.

The team started the new set of F1 regulations strongly in 2022, going toe-to-toe with Red Bull before regressing over the race distances. While it was the only team besides Red Bull to win a race last year, courtesy of Carlos Sainz in Singapore, Ferrari’s main battle lay with Mercedes. It ultimately lost the race for second in the championship by three points.

Like Mercedes, Ferrari has promised an overhaul of its car for this year, which will feature 95 percent new components. It will lay the foundations for Hamilton’s first Ferrari F1 car in 2025, the last under the current rule set before the design rules change significantly again for 2026. That is the year most regard to offer the best chance of ending Verstappen and Red Bull’s dominance.

Hamilton raced for now-Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur’s ART Grand Prix team in his early days, and they have remained in close contact ever since.(Formula 1/Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images)

Hamilton’s age also needs to be considered. He’ll be 40 by the time he joins Ferrari, and although he remains in peak physical condition and has expressed zero doubts over his long-term future, he’s not in the position to invest in a long-term project like many of his younger counterparts.

It means there needs to be immediate success once Hamilton joins in 2025, but his pending arrival will only help build momentum at Maranello. The team is on a recruitment drive, and the lure of working with Hamilton can only help it attract top technical talent who could aid its bid to win another championship.

On a pure competitive level, going from Mercedes to Ferrari looks like a sideways move. But there is one thing Ferrari offered Hamilton that Mercedes — and, frankly, no other team — cannot.

The romance behind the move

Ferrari has always enjoyed a mythical air in F1. It is ingrained in the sport’s history. You think of F1, and you think of Ferrari.

No team carries such prestige and prowess. Even in the fallow periods without a championship, like the current one stretching back to 2008, it has remained a team the majority of drivers dream of racing for one day. Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ team principal, even acknowledged in 2019 that “probably it’s in every driver’s head to drive at Ferrari one day.”

Or, as Vettel once put it: “Everyone is a Ferrari fan. Even if they say they’re not, they are Ferrari fans.”

There is a degree of romance behind the move. Hamilton has owned Ferrari road cars, and has a close friendship with John Elkann, Ferrari’s president. It will also see Hamilton reunite with Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s team principal. Hamilton raced for Vasseur’s ART Grand Prix team when he was on the ranks leading to F1, and they have remained in close contact ever since.

Hamilton has always held great respect for the history of F1. He’s passionate about its roots and its history, meaning the weight of Ferrari will not be lost on him. It’s a team that so many of F1’s greatest names have driven for at one stage of their careers.

To succeed with Ferrari is, in many ways, the ultimate story in F1 — and could be huge for Hamilton’s own legacy. For his final hurrah in F1 to be with Ferrari, potentially winning the record-breaking eighth world championship, would surely be the ultimate way to end his storied career.

The alternative? Ferrari fails to deliver a car good enough for Hamilton to return to the top. The strategic miscues and mistakes that happened all too often in recent years are a source of frustration. There is no eighth world championship.

Even in that scenario, Hamilton still gets to fulfill the dream so many F1 drivers hold, and very few actually realize, of racing for Ferrari. Seeing him in those famous red overalls will take some getting used to, but it’s now going to become a reality.

It’s worth remembering when Hamilton left McLaren for Mercedes in 2013, when it had just a single race win to its name since returning to F1, the decision was widely doubted. It proved to be a masterstroke. He’ll hope his judgment has proven correct once again.

(Lead image of Lewis Hamilton: Dan Istitene, Bryn Lennon / Getty Images; Design: John Bradford/The Athletic)

Through his success in 2023, Max Verstappen delivered the most dominant season by a driver in Formula One history.

At times, races looked like a foregone conclusion before they’d even started. The hope stirred by a close qualifying would quickly fade when Verstappen got into his groove in the race.

He didn’t just beat his previous record of 15 wins in a season from 2022, he destroyed it with 19 victories in 22 races — and over 1,000 laps led.

“When you look back at the season that he’s had, particularly across the different challenges of the different venues, circuits, conditions, he’s been just phenomenal this year,” said Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal.

A combination of factors made Verstappen’s season possible, be it Red Bull producing such a strong car in the RB19, teammate Sergio Pérez’s struggles, and the lack of sustained threat from rival teams.

But 2023 also marked another step in Verstappen’s evolution. His raw speed and “extremely rare, natural talent”, to quote his race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, matched with a growing experience that made him almost impossible to beat in 2023.

It was something Horner quickly noted after Verstappen clinched his third title in the Qatar sprint race with six grands prix to spare. “He’s always had the speed from the moment he sat in the car,” Horner said. But speed alone doesn’t make a champion.

“He arrived in Formula One as quite a rough diamond. He’s now a very polished diamond. He’s maintained all those raw attributes that he had, but now brings experience to couple with that.”

That “rough diamond” landed in F1 off the back of only one year in single-seater racing. Verstappen had already fast-tracked from go-karts to Formula Three, where his performances quickly drew interest from all the front-running F1 teams. Only Red Bull was prepared to get him straight into F1 for 2015, starting out with its sister team, Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri). At 17, Verstappen became F1’s youngest ever driver.

Four races into Verstappen’s second season, Red Bull had seen enough: Daniil Kvyat’s struggles prompted it to promote Verstappen to its senior squad and send Kvyat in the opposition direction. It was deemed a huge leap for the young Dutchman — only for him to win on his Red Bull debut in Spain.

“This rough diamond turned up and won his first race. He didn’t take much polishing, did he?” Paul Monaghan, Red Bull’s chief engineer, told The Athletic. “It wasn’t bad from the outset.

“What I saw in Max when he first arrived was a very driven, determined young man with a huge amount of self belief. Sometimes people may perceive that as arrogance, but it’s not. It’s confidence and self belief. And my goodness me, he’s got the talent to back it up.”

That confidence turns into an expectation for nothing but the best — both from the team around him, and himself.

“He doesn’t leave anything on the table, he wants it all,” Horner said in Qatar. “That drives and motivates the team internally. He is relentless in his pursuit of performance, and he doesn’t just want to win. He wants to dominate.”

From winner to champion

There was a time when the idea of Verstappen winning so many races in a season seemed far-fetched. Prior to 2021, victories were a rarity, not the norm. Mercedes and Ferrari’s advantage over Red Bull meant there were few opportunities for Verstappen to challenge for top spot, limiting him to 10 wins from 2016 to the end of 2020 – as many as he won consecutively between May and September this year.

It was all part of the learning curve. Verstappen’s fierce fight for the 2021 title with Lewis Hamilton boiled over on numerous occasions, eventually being settled in controversial fashion on the last lap of the last race of the season. The intensity of that championship undoubtedly played a part in Verstappen’s growth.

His father, Jos Verstappen, has been there for every step of the journey. He agreed that the “experience makes him better”, and although he had not seen any great change in his son, he doubted such a dominant year would have been possible a few years ago.

“It’s the same Max as three or four years ago,” Jos said in Qatar. “The only difference is he has a fantastic car around him. He knows the people that he works with, and I think that makes it look easy.

“But you still have to be there every weekend, and the details make the difference. For me, if he had this car four years ago, I wouldn’t say he would win another 10 races (in a row). But for sure, he was very close to what we have seen now.”

On his Red Bull debut in 2016, Verstappen clinched his first F1 victory. (Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Verstappen’s confidence behind the wheel extends to all his interactions with the Red Bull team. Besides what Monaghan described as “the occasional verbal volley” on the radio — hardly a sign of tension, more of the strength of the relationship — there has also been another level of self assurance and calmness this year.

“Listen to his radio messages: ‘What’s the gap, what’s this, what’s that, what are the switch changes?’” Monaghan said. “It’s all just taken with driving as quickly as anybody on the track, and it’s just easy. That’s what I see in him. Out of the car, he seems more relaxed to me.”

Beneath it all, there is the unwavering, unrelenting desire to win. Even through the final six races of the season, when he could have let up after sewing up the championship, Verstappen did not miss a beat. As he put it after the season finale in Abu Dhabi: “Winning is great. Why would I not want to win?”

The evolution of Verstappen into such a dominant driver has put him into the same conversation as the all-time greats, even at the tender age of 26. In the past two seasons, Verstappen has gone from 20 victories to 54, leaping from tied for 17th on the all-time wins list to third, with only Michael Schumacher (91) and Hamilton (103) ahead of him. At this rate, both are within his sights before his Red Bull contract is up at the end of 2028.

“He appreciates the history of the sport, and he respects the records that are there,” Horner said.

“A big percentage of his race wins have come in the last two or three years. It really depends on us if we’re able to provide him the tools as well. They’re massive numbers. (To) Lewis, he’s only halfway there in certain respects.

“But he has a lot of racing ahead of him.”

(Lead image of Max Verstappen in 2023: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Keep up to speed with all our coverage from the Las Vegas Grand Prix right here. 

LAS VEGAS — Midway through his post-race interview, Oscar Piastri paused as the huge fireworks display over the Las Vegas Strip interrupted his train of thought.

“Jesus Christ…” he said, the noise turning everyone’s heads towards the sky. He deadpanned: “Welcome to Las Vegas.”

Even as F1 ended its Las Vegas weekend on a high note with one of the most exciting races of the season, a three-way fight for the win that went down to the closing stages, there was no escaping the significance of the off-track show.

It had been a point of contention for many. Max Verstappen, the eventual race winner, had railed against F1’s Las Vegas race being “99 percent show, one percent sporting event” as early as Wednesday. While some drivers understood the need to embrace the spectacle, they still had a job to do, a race to win, 25 points to fight for. That was their focus.

This was always the dichotomy of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. F1 long planned for this to be so much more than one more race, building it up as one of the greatest spectacles in global sport. Ironically, this actually was one of the more exciting races of the 2023 season, thanks to that thrilling late fight and action throughout the field. To get exciting competitive action, something largely outside of F1’s control, was something nice to have, not a must-have.

It was not a straightforward race weekend by any means. No new races are. But no new races have half a billion dollars spent making them happen. In true Las Vegas style, the stakes were raised.

Walking to the grid on Saturday evening, there was a sense of excitement and nervousness typically reserved for title deciders. After 18 months of preparations and hype building, it was time for F1 to deliver. The chips were down.

What followed ticked all the boxes for a great F1 event. The neon signs along the illuminated Strip made for a spectacular visual. The race itself had a close battle for the win and lots of overtaking, a rarity on a street track. Fears about the cold temperatures making the tires impossible to manage were largely unfounded, even if it was tricky on the run to Turn 1 and on the restarts following the safety car periods when the tires had cooled down.

The track pleasantly surprised the drivers. The layout looked quite simple and may have been compared to an upside-down pig. But the profile of the corners and particularly the long DRS zones meant there were lots of overtaking opportunities.

“I did not expect to have that much fun in the race,” admitted Charles Leclerc, whose successful lunge on Sergio Pérez lit up the last lap. “I’m sure it was a good one to watch. I’ll make sure I watch that one back.” George Russell said it was “surreal” being in Las Vegas, but that the track was “a lot better to drive than anticipated” and had “quite a lot of character.”

That does not mean there are no changes required for the future. Because there are big things that must be addressed.

Changes needed

Although it provided good racing, the circuit needs work. The levels of grip were still incredibly low, as tends to be the case on street tracks. “You have to wrestle the car, but it’s not a feeling you get a lot of feedback from,” Daniel Ricciardo explained. “I think if the grip was higher, it would be more enjoyable.” Carlos Sainz also picked out Turn 12, the corner leading onto the Strip, as being “a bit too dangerous” due to the position of the wall. Steps can be made to try and help on both counts.

The greater calls for change, ironically, related to off-track affairs, namely the scheduling of the race. The 10 p.m. lights out was the latest in F1 history, and the result of a lot of compromises, but the F1 paddock was arguably the biggest loser. Rarely did a conversation go by without someone mentioning how little they’d slept or how confused their body clock was. The delays that led to FP2 finishing at 4 a.m. on Friday didn’t help. Ricciardo said people were “delirious,” while Leclerc thought the late timings were “a bit on the limit.” Piastri said he wished this were the season’s last race so he could go straight home, as he already felt like he was on Australian time.

The extravagant nature of the Las Vegas GP is here to stay. (Chris Graythen – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

It is difficult to find the right time to start the race. The push to minimize the disruption of shutting one of the most famous roads in the world means it is not as simple as bringing the start time forward. But it must be something F1 explores because few in the paddock have appreciated such late starts. An 8 p.m. lights out, as we have in Singapore, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, would be more appropriate.

The other factor that made Las Vegas so punishing is what comes now: the trip to Abu Dhabi for the season finale. It’s a journey that takes 16 hours and has a time difference of 12 hours, something everyone must be ready for by Wednesday at the latest. “It’s such a big time shift, especially at the end of a season when everyone is already a bit tired,” Verstappen said. “I think it’s a little bit much. So maybe it would be ideal to find a different date.”

It will only worsen next year: Las Vegas starts a triple-header featuring Qatar and Abu Dhabi to end the year. Ricciardo was shocked to find out that fact on Sunday. “They need to bring it forward because we’ll be wrecked, especially at the end of the season,” he said. Unfortunately, it’s not something that’s viable for next year, and Las Vegas intends to keep this pre-Thanksgiving date slot in the long term. It only adds to the need to try to bring forward the race start time to make the whole weekend a bit easier on the entire paddock.

There are also evident lessons the Las Vegas organizers must learn. The issue with the water valve cover is one that should be easily remedied in the future, as it was learned the hard way. Then there is the tone-deaf handling of the fans in the early hours of Friday morning, forcing them to leave and then offering neither a refund nor an apology but a $200 voucher for merchandise for an event at which they saw a whole eight minutes of on-track action. Announcing on Saturday that ticket deposits were being accepted for 2024 – itself a sign of how expensive the race is to attend – was a bad look.

‘Today’s been fun’

One thing that is unlikely to change is the extravagant nature of the Las Vegas spectacle. The city’s identity and reputation will remain at the heart of the race, ranging from the wedding chapel in the paddock to the number of Elvis impersonators — I’ve genuinely lost count — and the slot machine lever on the timing bridges at either end of the pit lane. It will be authentically Vegas, for better or worse.

Even Verstappen got into the spirit a little after winning, singing “Viva Las Vegas” over the radio as part of a new tradition he agreed to with Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.

But Verstappen denied the race had changed his tune on Las Vegas. “I always expected it to be a good race today,” he said. “Like I said before, long straights, low-speed corners, you don’t lose a lot of downforce. That’s never been my issue. Today’s been fun. I hope everyone enjoyed it.”

Lewis Hamilton urged people on Wednesday to give Las Vegas a chance and not judge before the race. After the race, he admitted being surprised by just how good a track it was, adding: “For all those that were so negative about the weekend, saying it’s all about show, blah, blah, blah… I think Vegas proved them wrong.” It’s not hard to see whom that comment was aimed at.

The race might not have turned Verstappen into a Las Vegas convert, but it proved that what happens on-track can live up to all the hype being built off-track.

For that reason, F1 will surely consider the start of its Las Vegas residency to be a success. There’s room for improvement, yes, but after how things started, it was a huge turnaround for the sport.

By Verstappen’s measurements, the one percent sporting event outweighed the 99 percent show. Few would have fancied those odds on Thursday night.

More from The Athletic’s Las Vegas Grand Prix coverage:

Why F1’s first Las Vegas grand prix was an utter failure — and a ‘lesson learned’

Our turn-by-turn breakdown of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit

F1’s ‘unacceptable’ night in Las Vegas: How a water valve cover halted practice

(Lead photo of Max Verstappen: ANP via Getty Images)

From the day F1 announced the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the visuals of cars streaking down The Strip at night have captured the imagination.

But the upcoming Formula One circuit will also pass through another element that will catch viewers’ attention worldwide: The new Sphere, a 20,000-capacity entertainment venue that is the largest spherical structure in the world and cost $2.3 billion to build.

The Sphere will be impossible to miss for F1 fans. It already is for any Las Vegas visitor who has been to the city since the Sphere’s “exosphere” – its external LED screen – began lighting up in July.

Next week, when F1 comes to town, the Sphere will sit inside the track near Turns 5, 6 and 7 – adjacent to a fan area with both general admission and grandstand seating called “T-Mobile Zone at Sphere.” That zone will be the main area for concerts and other entertainment during the weekend. (It’s also where The Athletic’s Michael Dominski will report on the race.)

“We’re excited to showcase Sphere to the millions of Formula 1 fans that will be watching around the world,” Sphere executive chairman and CEO James Dolan said on an investor call this week. “As part of our agreement, F1 will have a multi-day takeover of Sphere, including the use of the exosphere (to) display race-related content and compelling brand activations.”

What does that mean? Well, the outside of the structure features 1.2 million puck-sized LEDs, which offers a blank canvas for creative content opportunities. That’s an area F1 has plenty of experience with.

Las Vegas GP organizers plan to use the Sphere heavily during the pre-race buildup and the national anthem, although the visuals will need to be toned down during the on-track sessions to avoid drivers mistaking something on the exosphere for a yellow or red flag.

(Dan Istitene/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

“It will serve as an incredible backdrop to our Sphere grandstands where you have a number of turns, you have a chicane – it will be an incredible place to have a ticket,” Las Vegas GP CEO Renee Wilm told The Athletic. “… We’re just going to continue the momentum around their global exposure. It’ll be terrific racing and a terrific customer experience.”

Of course, it’s not all positive. Concerns have ranged from environmental (light pollution, energy usage) to increased traffic along the heavily-used Sands Ave.

Vegas taxi driver Dale Corson said there have been stories of rideshares taking 90 minutes to reach the Sphere entrance before events because traffic has been so snarled.

“There’s no parking because they have the race setup in the parking lot,” Corson said last month. “So you can’t even get there to park.”

Though the exosphere has gotten plenty of attention – it’s appeared as everything from a giant basketball during the NBA Summer League to an emoji appearing to peek into hotel rooms – it’s the theater inside the Sphere that has generated loads of buzz since opening Sept. 29 with a series of U2 concerts. It also has a film experience by director Darren Aronofsky called “Postcard from Earth” – which, like the U2 residency, has created jaw-dropping visuals on the massive screen enveloping the audience.

‘It’s probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life’ — U2 kicked off its residency at the Las Vegas Sphere in September, 7 years after the venue was first conceptualized pic.twitter.com/5UE8yNJISD

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 7, 2023

Dolan said “Postcard from Earth” and the U2 shows have led to the Sphere generating $1 million in daily ticket revenues through October. Both shows will go dark during race week, but the Sphere itself will still be an attention-getter.

“We are already seeing Sphere’s ability to inspire awe and wonder, and the venue has become a landmark destination in Las Vegas,” Dolan said. “But we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface and are excited by how much further we can take this new entertainment media in the future.”

That includes building additional Sphere venues around the world, though it’s quite an expensive proposition. The Sphere drew headlines this week when its quarterly earnings report revealed an operating loss of $98.4 million (though that did not include any of the October shows). The company’s CFO Gautam Ranji also quit.

But during F1 week, the Sphere-related conversation will likely range from “What the heck is that thing?” to “Did you see what they put on the outside of it this time?”

“The exosphere will be utilized in many different ways, both from an entertainment perspective as well as to support our sponsors who have invested in our race,” Wilm said. “And then also to highlight some areas of the race itself.”

Said Dolan: “Our journey with Sphere is just beginning. And while it will take some time for Sphere to realize its full potential, we’re off to a great start.”

(Lead Image: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic)

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When Formula One announced in the spring of 2022 that it would stage a race in Las Vegas, it made too much sense not to happen. The city’s glitzy, entertainment-focused nature perfectly fits the sport. All the key players were invested not just in 2023 but in giving it a permanent place on the calendar. 

So, the F1-Las Vegas union can’t fail, right? 

It can, actually. We know that because it has failed before — and somewhat spectacularly. All one has to do is look back to 1981 and 1982 to understand why this bet doesn’t offer a guaranteed payout.

The allure of Las Vegas

F1 first came to the Nevada desert in 1981 with the same kind of thinking that marks today’s race. It already had two races in the U.S. — at New York’s Watkins Glen International and in Long Beach, Calif. — but Vegas offered something different. 

As the 1981 season finale, it was hyped as a star-studded affair that would showcase the glitz and glamor that Las Vegas offers, marketed towards a high roller demographic similar to how casinos promoted other sporting events. 

“Caesars (Palace) was holding these boxing matches in their pavilion behind their hotel,” said Chris Pook, the founder of the Long Beach Grand Prix, brought in by race promoters to help organize the new event. “There weren’t a lot of seats, but the seats were very expensive, and they were packed. Everybody that wanted to come and gamble on the fight came, so they would sell out in literally hours. 

“So Caesars was fairly confident if they did something like this for an F1 race that they would be able to get all their high rollers invited to come and participate and enjoy the event.” 

Run in a parking lot, the Caesars Palace Grand Prix lasted just two years. (Bernard Cahier/Getty Images)

Mario Andretti, then driving for Alfa Romeo, was excited when he heard F1 would be visiting Las Vegas. F1’s popularity in the U.S. was surging, with Watkins Glen having established itself and Long Beach quickly proving quite popular. Racing in a city as alluring as Las Vegas made sense.

Then Andretti learned the particulars. The race would not be held on a permanent track like Watkins Glen or even a properly built street circuit like in Long Beach. The organizers instead opted to create a course in a parking lot adjacent to the Caesars Palace hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip.

That’s why the race was not the Las Vegas Grand Prix but the Caesars Palace Grand Prix. 

 “We figured that would be exciting, and we were all looking forward to it,” said Andretti. “But after seeing that venue where it was, I didn’t think it was going to have much life because geographically it was very restricted.”

Where the circuit was located within the city and how it was laid out would become significant factors in why F1 lasted just two years in Las Vegas before ignominiously pulling the plug. 

The cost of compromise

It was a compromise. Lacking suitable options elsewhere and wanting to have the circuit as close as possible to the major casino backing the event meant working within a small plot of land that nestled up against a casino, Interstate 15 and the Las Vegas Strip (which, according to Pook, the city would not allow organizers to utilize fully).  

 The result was a 14-turn, 2.2-mile counter-clockwise circuit that featured no elevation changes and necessitated lots of back-and-forth sections to fulfill the 2-mile minimum length because of the small footprint.

“To fit it in the space was a challenge,” Pook said. “It was tough. Those cars, even in those days, needed to be able to stretch their legs and they were somewhat restricted by the layout of the circuit.

“It’s a bit unfair to call it a parking lot race because it was not really a parking lot — it was part of a parking lot and a lot of desert, dirt, which the circuit was built on. Caesars spent a lot of money, a huge amount of money, building the circuit.”

1982 was the last time F1 raced in Las Vegas (track on the left). On the right we have a very different layout for 2023. #LasVegasGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/jsi9m2wxJf

— F1 Images (@F1_Images) November 8, 2023

Hitting the track confirmed the skepticism. Andretti and Derek Daly, who also competed in both Caesars Palace Grands Prix, recall a physically demanding circuit with short straightaways and constant tight turns. Drivers were pushed even further physically and mentally for the 1982 race when the ambient temperature was nearly 99° F (37° C). (This year, drivers are more concerned about the cold.)

“The heat was extreme,” Daly said. “For the first time and only time in my life as a racing driver, with about three laps to go, I began to get dizzy in the brake zones because it was so hot. I was so dehydrated, and the track was so bumpy, and there was no rest.” 

The circuit was also aesthetically uninspiring. Built mainly upon the space where The Forum Shops mall now resides, that area of Las Vegas in the early 1980s lacked many of the signature structures that have since given Las Vegas its distinct appearance. And with the race being held on a Saturday afternoon, the trademark neon lights were unnoticeable. The setting was rather drab, lacking the kind of backdrop that should be associated with Las Vegas hosting a high-profile global sporting event. 

“It was more a novelty than an event,” Daly said.

A marriage on the rocks

Support within the city was also muted. With Caesars Palace exclusively promoting the race and footing the bill, other casinos and hotels did not help market the race to its clientele, a far cry from the new Las Vegas Grand Prix, where nearly every prominent casino has a financial stake and is thereby motivated to promote the race.

According to Andretti and Daly, even though drivers stayed in the casinos, their presence essentially went unnoticed. And while several celebrities were in attendance, there was little buzz surrounding the festivities. 

“We all stayed at Caesars Palace, and we could get fully dressed in our rooms, which we did, walk to breakfast wearing your driver suit, which we did, and no one noticed,” Daly said. “Nobody understood Formula One. Nobody knew Formula One drivers.”

Before too long, the participants realized that the city and F1 were destined to end like so many Las Vegas marriages: broken up. 

Alan Jones, Alain Prost and Bruno Giacomelli at the 1981 Caesars Palace Grand Prix. (Bernard Cahier/Getty Images)

“Quite honestly, realistically, when you looked at everything, there’s no way that this thing had a long life,” Andretti said. “Mainly, again, because of where it was; you had no solid infrastructure. At that time, you knew there would only be another year or two left.” 

Few were surprised when, after two years, F1 bid adieu to Las Vegas. With the Caesars Palace Grand Prix a money-losing proposition and the fan support tepid, it made little sense to return despite years remaining on the contract between the parties.

In 1983 and 1984, the circuit held an IndyCar race, which also proved unsuccessful. It would be 41 years before F1 returned to Las Vegas, but when it does next week, it will be under much different circumstances and in a much different setting. 

The new Las Vegas Grand Prix has strong support from the state and local government and will be held at night on a course awash in neon lights and before a crowd of up to 100,000 each day of the weekend. Pook estimates that 20,000 to 25,000 people attended the inaugural Caesars Palace Grand Prix for comparison’s sake. 

What becomes of the Las Vegas Grand Prix will be determined with time. However, A lot would have to go awry for it to have anywhere close to the inglorious legacy that the Caesars Palace Grand Prix holds in the annals of F1.

“I think the legacy is a lesson learned,” Pook said. “You cannot put two pounds of manure in a one-pound bag. And in this case, Formula One was great in those days. The racing was great, the competition was great, everything was great. It just didn’t work. It just wouldn’t fit there. It didn’t give justice to the Formula One product.”

GO DEEPER

An ironic compromise: Why the Las Vegas GP starts at 10 p.m. PT

(Lead image of the 1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix: Bernard Cahier/Getty Images))

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LUSAIL, Qatar — Two weeks ago, Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris cut relaxed figures as they joked around in the cool-down room ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix podium ceremony.

As the top three finishers of the race, they sat nonchalantly in chairs. They watched replays of the race, discussing various incidents and moves that had unfolded behind them, and Verstappen’s dislike of podcasts.

While Sunday’s race in Qatar provided a near-identical result — Verstappen winning ahead of the two McLarens, only with Piastri leading Norris this time — the aftermath of the race could not have been more different.

Norris sat clutching a towel filled with ice. One day after clinching his third world title, Verstappen crouched in the corner and asked if anyone had a wheelchair. Piastri laid out flat on his back.

Read more: Formula One’s path to sustainability ‘is a journey’ – and it’s just the beginning

They were physically finished, like every other driver who raced on Sunday. Logan Sargeant retired mid-race because he felt so unwell. Lance Stroll staggered out of his car after the race before going to the medical center for a check-up. Alex Albon needed help getting out of his cockpit and was also taken to see medical staff, where he was treated for acute heat exposure before being cleared.

The toughest race of my career. But P7!!! 👍🏼👍🏼 pic.twitter.com/oEgWQRzKYT

— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) October 8, 2023

Qatar’s conditions — temperatures around 90ºF (32ºC), humidity around 70% — broke F1 drivers on Sunday.

“This is the toughest race, I think, for every driver in F1 of our career, for everybody,” Charles Leclerc of Ferrari said. “I don’t believe anyone that’s says it’s not.”

As the drivers came one by one to the media pen after the race, the efforts of their exertion were written all over their faces and bodies. Most were drenched in sweat and carried towels around their necks. Nico Hulkenberg left after two questions as he needed to get cool. Liam Lawson wore an ice vest with his overalls undone on the top half.

Many turned up a few minutes later than planned after using an ice bath to cool their bodies — one so cold that George Russell, believe it or not, had to put on a jumper.

There can be a misunderstanding in the outside world about how hard it is to drive F1 cars and just how much physical conditioning the drivers require to deal with the immense g-forces and loads their bodies are put under. They need to be super fit and strong simply to get these cars around the track.

Heat makes everything harder. Singapore has typically been regarded as the most difficult race physically due to the tough street circuit, the long race length, and the high heat and humidity that comes with being so close to the equator.

But this weekend in Qatar took things up another level. While it may have been a night race, starting at 8 p.m. local time on Sunday, the temperature was still incredibly high. It peaked at over 105ºF (40.6ºC) during the daytime and had only dropped to around 90ºF by the time the race got underway.

Inside the tight confines of the cockpit with the engine behind them and the hot air only being blown towards them, the drivers couldn’t stay cool. “The temperature in the cockpit started to be almost too much,” Valtteri Bottas explained. “The feeling is like torture in the car. Any hotter than this would not be safe.”

Although the drivers have water available to them through a tube running from a drinks bottle into their helmets, the high temperature means this gets turned into tea, making dehydration a serious issue.

“It’s not even physical preparation, it’s just dehydration,” Leclerc said. “It’s such a level that your vision is so much worse, your heart rate is going to the stars, and it’s very difficult to control all of this. It was really, really difficult.”

Following Logan’s retirement from the Grand Prix, he has been assessed and cleared by the medical team on-site after suffering from intense dehydration during the race weakened by having flu like symptoms earlier in the week. pic.twitter.com/oeLhDrtfGC

— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) October 8, 2023

Esteban Ocon said he started feeling ill around Lap 15 of 57. “Then I was throwing up for two laps inside the cockpit,” he revealed. “Then I was like, ‘s—, that’s going to be a long race.’”

Many tried to find ways to stay cool. Russell and Yuki Tsunoda both opened their visors at points for air to get in, only for that to cause, in Tsunoda’s case, sand to blow into his eyes. Ocon used his hands when possible to try to guide air towards his helmet.

“The more I was breathing to try and get everything lower, the more heat that was coming inside the helmet,” Ocon said. “Honestly, it was hell in there.”

Ocon has a very high level of physical dedication, even by the standards of F1 drivers.“I can normally do two race distances, even in Singapore,” he said. “Physically, like muscle-wise and cardio-wise, I’m always fine.” But not in Qatar. “I was not expecting for the race to be that hard.”

Yet even while throwing up, Ocon did not consider pulling out of the race. “It’s not an option, retiring,” he said. “I was never going to do that. You need to kill me to retire.”

How we got here

A few factors came together to make Qatar such a physical test.

Naturally, the ambient temperature was the biggest contributing factor. While F1 has raced in Qatar before, in 2021, that was at the end of November, when temperatures were a bit cooler. But coming here at the start of October, it is still sweltering. There was also no breeze today, unlike earlier in the weekend, making it even harder for the drivers to get cool. Next year’s race in Qatar is on Dec. 1, meaning the temperature should be more tolerable.

The decision to limit the number of laps per tire stint on safety grounds also had an impact. By making it a mandatory three-stop race, the drivers could push harder as they did not need to manage their tires in the same way as normal. Around such a high-speed track like Lusail, especially through the fast final sector with such quick cars, that only increased the physical toll.

“These cars are so quick in the high speed that when you are doing quali lap after quali lap, the g-forces for 57 laps in this heat are crazy,” Leclerc said.

All the conditioning in the world would not have prepared them for the physical exertions their bodies went through, particularly those engaged in race-long battles that made them work extra hard.

“It’s just too warm,” Verstappen said. “It has nothing to do with training or whatever. I think some of the guys who were struggling today they are extremely fit, probably even fitter than me.

“The whole day, it’s like you’re walking around in a sauna, and then in the night, the humidity goes up.”

Finding the limit

It prompted a number of drivers to say F1 had found — or even surpassed — the maximum heat for them to be racing in, making it a discussion point for the future.

The penny dropped for Leclerc when he got out of the car and saw the other drivers in the FIA garage, where they must be weighed after the race. “We can always look at each other at the end of the race when we are sat down, and this time you could feel it was different,” he said. “Some drivers really felt really bad. This is something we’ll have to discuss.”

Norris said F1 had “found the limit” in Qatar, and that it was “sad we had to find it this way.”

“It’s never a nice situation to be in, if some people are ending up in the medical center or passing out, things like that,” said Norris.

“It’s a pretty dangerous thing to have going on.”

(Lead photo of Max Verstappen: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)