F1 officially announced that Las Vegas will be hosting a night race next year onwards, and Daniel Ricciardo seems extremely happy about it.
A potential return for Las Vegas in the F1 calendar was rumored for a long time. It’s one of the most recognizable cities in the world, and it’s glamour would be good for increasing the sport’s market in the US and around the world.
The last we saw a race in the Sin City was 1984, with the Caesars Palace GP. It did not bring in much success and the race was met with overwhelming negative response. A major reason for that was the fact that F1 wasn’t popular in the US back then.
Today on the other hand, F1 is a global spectacle that has an ever increasing audience in the United States. As a result, the organizers made the decision to add Las Vegas to the 2023 calendar.
The city of Las Vegas joins Miami and Austin as the third American city in the F1 calendar. It’s going to be a street circuit lay-out, around the prominent parts of the city, and will feature 14 corners.
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Daniel Ricciardo and other F1 drivers react to the inclusion of Las Vegas into the calendar
After announcing the decision to bring a race to Nevada, F1 shared a video on their Twitter, where the current drivers reacted to the news. It began with Esteban Ocon looking surprised, and exclaiming, “Are we going to race there?! No!”.
The highlight of the video however, was Daniel Ricciardo. The McLaren driver showed himself to be smiling and happily snapping his fingers.
He added it by saying that he was considering retiring from F1, but the news of Las Vegas’ addition changed his mind. It’s unclear whether the Aussie was serious about it, or was just joking.
There were other drivers with pretty interesting reactions as well. Four-time Sebastian Vettel spoke about the world famous Las Vegas casinos. “I’m sure some drivers will spend some money on the casinos”, he said. “Then they’ll try to earn it back on Sunday.”
2021 World Champion Max Verstappen added a hilarious comment, suggesting that a few drivers “may not even wake up for their race” from all the partying.
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