2023 Grand Prixview Las Vegas

The team hopes to continue their winning ways from the last few races into this thrilling new chapter, with the Las Vegas Grand Prix just a few days away. Our drivers, who have only ever practiced on the sim, give us a sneak peek at how they have been getting ready for the race, their thoughts on the weather, and what to expect from their first race in the city of lights.

“Being a lap down in the Brazil race was annoying, but regrettably that’s how the rules are written, and it was a wasted chance to gain more points. The weekend was encouraging because of how quickly things moved. It felt like we were moving at a good clip, and that’s what matters most of all. Actually, I believe that when we ran in clear air, we had more to demonstrate.

Since then, I’ve been quite busy. After spending a day in the simulator on Sunday night, we took off for the UK last Wednesday, and on Wednesday I left for California. Since I live there, I was able to use my gym’s equipment and train there, and the rest of the time I just relaxing and preparing for the trip to Vegas. I’ve visited Vegas numerous times in the past. It is a lively place. Really, I’ve only ever visited for leisure, like on summer vacations with my Australian friends, so it will be interesting to visit with a slightly different perspective. The city is incredibly bizarre, especially at night when there are so many lights. That will be cool because I think it will feel like we are racing on a movie set.

“From what I’ve learned on the sim, it’s a really challenging track because there’s a lot of long straights and then these short 90-degree corners with a lot of turning and braking. The layout’s definitely interesting. I hope it provides good racing. I think the long straights definitely give it some opportunities, and because it’s also tight and twisty in some places, it’ll present quite a unique set of challenges. We know it’s going to be cold. I think getting the tyres working and the car to produce enough grip with downforce will be a big key to getting some lap time out of it. It could feel like Baku the first year when it was low-grip, which was interesting, as you had to push really hard on the out-lap to get the tyres going.

“There’s going to be a lot going on apart from the track action, so I aim to stay in the zone and block out the distractions. It’s the balance of obviously trying to promote the weekend, promote the race and also enjoy some of the extracurricular things. The bottom line is I’m there to race, and that’s the thing I need to prioritise and focus on. Especially now we’ve closed the gap to Williams, getting points is so crucial and critical. I would say it’s a very simple approach. Rest when I can rest, and then when I need to be on it, I’ll just focus and put my energy into that. If there’s a little bit of downtime, I’ll try not to keep my mind too occupied.”

The team is currently riding high after three excellent races in which they have scored points. The extent to which we have gotten closer to Williams is really encouraging. We attribute a lot of that to the improvements we made to Austin, which increased our self-assurance and speed. Sincerely speaking, I hadn’t anticipated the kind of performance we saw in Brazil. With that in mind, we need to carry over our positive momentum into the next two races in order to battle hard and accumulate enough points in the Constructors’ Championship in the hopes of finishing the year in P7.

“I’ve driven Vegas on the simulator, and it’s very fast with really long straights, but most of the corners are slow speed, which will require big braking. In the past, we tended to struggle at circuits that have long straights, but on a positive note, I feel this track has quite similar characteristics to Baku, where we normally perform well. I’m optimistic, but looking at the championship, I expect Williams will also be strong at this type of track, so we aim to fight hard and outscore them.

The main topic of discussion leading up to this race is the possibility of extreme cold when the cars are racing at night. Our engineers have studied this, of course, and the temperatures will be the same for all of us. It will undoubtedly have an impact, particularly on qualifying, how the tires warm up, and how they perform. It will still be a guess as to how much grip there will be from the tyres and the track surface, even though I’ve completed a lot of laps in the simulator and the team has done a lot of simulation work based on the data we have about the track. Although everything is unknown, I think we are ready, with a a great deal of data and correlation work, so hopefully we’ll have a solid idea for FP1. Long straights should be handled by a relatively low downforce setup if the track is sufficiently abrasive. Running low downforce in those circumstances can save a significant amount of time, and an abrasive surface will aid in tire warm-up. However, we might need to run more downforce if it’s extremely smooth. We will need to hold off until FP1. All I can hope for is that the car won’t get too cold! The numerous moving lights along the Strip might be another fascinating element. It will be interesting to observe because off-track lighting isn’t as prevalent at other night races. However, I don’t think it will be a distraction because I believe the racetrack’s floodlighting should be bright enough to block out any other lights.