Las Vegas Grand Prix tips, predictions and best bets: All the right ingredients for a chaotic race
- Mark Scott
- 14 November 2023
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week, you may be aware that a little-known race called the Las Vegas Grand Prix is firmly on the F1 horizon this weekend.
Love or hate the fact that F1 is racing here, the reality is nobody will be able to take their eyes away to see if it will live up to the massive hype being generated or drain everyone quicker than one of the nearby casinos can.
As F1 heads into the great unknown at a brand new track, here are our best Sin City selections.
Charles Leclerc podium finish
Charles Leclerc was left berating his own bad luck after his cursed Ferrari car gave up on him during the formation lap of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. It was a cruel, abrupt end for a driver who would have been in with a great chance of a podium finish at Interlagos.
Hopefully Las Vegas will bring a change of fortune for the Monegasque as this street circuit should really play to the strengths of the SF-23.
The downforce levels are predicted to be around the same as Monza for the Italian Grand Prix and that race weekend proved to be one of the strongest we have seen from Ferrari all season long.
Alex Albon points finish
This Las Vegas track should also suit Williams in their ongoing challenge of keeping a resurgent AlphaTauri at arm's length in the battle for P7 in the Constructors' Championship.
The circuit features a huge straight and Williams' excellent straight-line speed this season has been the main reason why we no longer see them cut well adrift of the rest of the F1 field and in the hunt for points instead.
Alex Albon is the obvious choice to side with when picking between the two Williams drivers, even if US-born Logan Sargeant will have extra motivation to secure points in his third home race of the year.
Under 17.5 finishers
The Las Vegas Grand Prix has all the right ingredients for a chaotic race and this selection will prove to be a very popular bet over the course of this week.
Former F1 boss Ross Brawn made an astonishing admission in the build-up to race week, telling talkSPORT that the sport's organisers had not taken into account the cold overnight Las Vegas temperatures at this time of year when designing the track, developing tyres with Pirelli and moving the on-track action to very late at night.
This is going to cause drivers and teams a real headache in trying to get the tyres into the right operating window and nobody has a single lap of experience to draw upon heading into this weekend.
It is a huge step into the unknown for everyone and the steep learning curve is why there is such heavy expectation for a lot of race retirements come midnight local time on Saturday night.
