Loose water valve cover causes chaos at Las Vegas Grand Prix
Hole-y moly! Last night, the $500 million F1 weekend came screeching to a halt for a loose water valve cover on the Las Vegas street course.
Just nine minutes into the first practice session of the novel race, the cover dislodged, resulting in massive damage to the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. The Alpine of Esteban Ocon was also reportedly involved in the incident.
Ferrari boss Fred Vassuer called the incident “unacceptable.” The damage was so significant to the Ferrari that Sainz was almost unable to participate in the second practice session, although his team worked furiously through the delay and managed to change the chassis and allow Sainz to return to the track for Free Practice 2. As Sainz’ car was being swapped in the paddock, multiple drainage covers were sealed on track. FP2 eventually started at 2:30 a.m. PT on Friday and was extended to 90 minutes to make up for lost time.
In a swift turn of fate, both Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Sainz had pace, going 1-2 in the second practice. However, because of the nature of the repairs made to the Ferrari, the FIA ruled that Sainz will be given a 10-place grid penalty for the race.
Unlike Vassuer, Mercedes principal Toto Wolff had a different tone in his post-practice comments. “That is not a black eye. This is nothing,” he said of the incident. “They are going to seal the drain covers and nobody is going to talk about it tomorrow morning.”
When a reporter pushed back, Wolff didn’t back down. “It’s completely ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. FP1, how can you even dare try to talk bad about an event that sets a new standard to everything?” Wolff asked. “You’re speaking about a drain cover that’s been undone. That has happened before. That’s nothing. It’s FP1.”
Wolff would know. His driver George Russell was the victim of a similar incident in the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when a loose drain cover damaged his car during FP1. Monaco also had a drain cover pop off in 2016.
Still, the world’s hyper focus on this event is likely take any small blemish and blow it out of proportion. No doubt this is not the start that event organizers wanted.
Is this small hole a big deal? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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It seems unfair to penalize a driver or team for the race track falling apart, especially in a night race where visibility will be limited.
@Andrew, I agree. The F1 rules seem short-sighted in this regard. Perhaps this incident will have them taking another look at the rule and adjusting it accordingly. The rule was created for good reason, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.
One might think that a 10-place penalty is not that big of a deal, especially if one sees the outcome of this race essentially a foregone conclusion. However, there are constructor’s and driver’s points at stake, both of which mean real-world money.
Absolute wrong for FIA to penalize Ferrari for something out of their control and totally withing the control of F1 and FIA. A thorough track inspection would have discovered the problem and it is not like such a thing has never happened, it has happened several times on street courses. Toto is full of Scheisse.
They know better than this. Every cover has to be flush and welded close on any street race with cars that have high down force.
I have seen indy car pull these up and toss them high behind them
Hyperv6 is completely right. I’ve read numerous stories of all the turmoil that the preparation for this race has caused by tearing up things, closing streets, re-routing traffic flows, and restricting access for tourism and workers. Through all of that, the planners didn’t think to properly seal these covers? Especially when there is a history of this happening on other (even long-term like Monaco) street courses? Inexcusable! Doesn’t someone even keep a “Checklist of Things to Do to Properly Prepare an F1 Grand Prix Street Course”? If not they sure as heck should, given what they charge to put these things on.
And to penalize a team for hurried repairs of damage caused BY the ineptitude of the organizers just trying to make a second practice? That seem ludicrous to the nth degree, IMHO… 👎👎
This is another example of the most common offenders that bring F1 into disrepute: the FIA.
No driver should be penalized for a situation like this.
The only POSSIBLE excuse for giving a penalty is if Ferrari is unable to put together a car to the same specs.
Horrible decision and they should know better.
According to the report read on the Sky F1 broadcast, the stewards checked over the regulations trying to see if there were any possible exceptions to the rule rquiring the grid penalty, and they could not find any, so the penalty had to be imposed. Perhaps next year’s rules will be different.
Time to ad the dislodged manhole cover clause, preferable today with a review after this race for future events.
The cover was welded, and it did not come loose. The entire assembly came loose.
That said, the disruption caused by this oversight must be an embarrasment to the organizers. They dumped a ton of money into this event, and to have this thorn in their lion’s paw must at least give them pause as to what else might go wrong.
I really feel for the spectators who paid hundreds of dollars to see a couple of hours of cars on the track, and were sent home after just ten minutes of action. They deserve refunds.
Also, now I wonder about access to those valves that were covered by asphalt. They were accessible for a reason, and that reason hasn’t disappeared because of a big-time auto race. Will they go back abd replace the access ports?
Love F1, Shit happens- no one was hurt thank god. Lets learn for the future and move past it.
Ten place grid penally, please do not move past that. This is simply so ridiculous that it is hard to believe that FIA cannot see its own errors. Rules are important as is flexibility with integrity and common sense. If fans threw debris on the track or as in Montreal a critter gets hit, would the same penalty apply? I sure like to hope not. Please FIA take control of your sport with common logic.
If F1 wants to loose it’s newly-found US fan base, they could just keep issuing penalties like this.
Yes they should have checked the covers.
They also should be running a few old cars as high speed test mules around a track before they put the current competing vehicles out there.
Buy the becoming-obsolete cars off some of the smaller teams, or make the big dollar teams bid for the honor…
I’ve been a big fan for years but I was a bit surprised that there’s no explanation anywhere about why they are practicing in the middle of the night and why there is no race on Sunday..? Not even on F1 website.
F1 went off the fairway and into the rough several years ago because of some unfortunate decisions IMO and the glorious days when V8, V10 and V12 could all be heard in the same race are now long gone…
That said, yup a road course must be prepped for F1 and all openings fastened. This is nothing new but, I guess for the Vegas guys! It’s all pretty new.
But c’mon now, even our Exhibition Place staff here in my home town (Indy race!) are able to prep their road course confidently. Anyway the Vegas guys missed one; it happens, no big deal I guess. But they penalized the Ferrari guy for repairing the damage to his car? That doesn’t seem right and would appear to amplify the incident.
F1 cars simply do not belong on street circuits.
With the exception of Monaco (and maybe Montreal) due to its cherished and meaningful legacy, the rest of them should just go away.
F1 cars should be raced on purpose built tracks which possess the inherent safety infrastructure for both the drivers and fans.
The people managing this Los Vegas “Pop-Up” race demonstrated exactly why. Missing something as obvious and known about from previous street events like loose manhole covers along with poorly maintained parade vehicles leaking fluids directly on the start-finish line, to ticket-paying fans being turned away from their seats during the event.
These street races exist only to produce revenue for those who control the purse strings.
A quite shoddy presentation to the rest of the world on how to run an F1 race, imho.
If this has happened in the past at other events, it’s a very big deal! Every cover should have been inspected and secured, how hard can that be. You can’t fix stupid!