Ricciardo questions F1’s due diligence over Vegas track

Daniel Ricciardo said it was fair to question whether Formula 1’s due diligence on Las Vegas circuit safety had gone far enough after Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari was destroyed by a loose drain cover during Friday’s opening practice session.

Initial practice lasted just eight minutes before the drain cover was lifted by Sainz’s car as it drove over it, causing significant damage to the Ferrari’s underside and severing its powertrain.

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Esteban Ocon’s Alpine also hit the drain cover and needed a replacement chassis.

The rest of the opening session was canceled while the second trials were delayed by two and a half hours and extended from 60 minutes to 90 minutes, meaning they finished at 4 a.m. local time .

Hype around the Las Vegas Grand Prix has reached an unprecedented level in recent weeks, culminating with a lavish opening ceremony on Wednesday.

After Thursday’s test session, Ricciardo was asked if F1 had prioritized spectacle over the safety of the sport.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “We say, yes, it’s late, but two cars were destroyed.

“On top of that there is a financial issue for the teams, which is a big problem for them, but then you brought up the biggest problem, which is security.

“So luckily Carlos is okay, but these things could be bigger – when I say bigger, I mean bigger consequences. I don’t know, I think it’s easy to say we’ve had some opening ceremonies and we focused on other things and did their “Due diligence on the track? But with everything that happened today, you might ask yourself questions like: Did they do enough?

“Obviously I can’t avoid it, it’s a security issue, and we’re here late, but I hope security is something they take pretty seriously.”

“He [loose drain covers] This happened in Monaco and Baku as well, it’s obviously a street circuit thing, but I feel like permanent circuits have certain criteria or whatever and a lot of boxes to check and I have the impression that urban circuits need a few more. It’s difficult when it’s open to the public, but obviously they have to do it.”

Due to a lack of security personnel working late at night, fans were asked to leave the circuit an hour before the start of the delayed second session, meaning cars drove around the track past empty grandstands.

“It’s disappointing, yeah,” Ricciardo added. “If we hadn’t done FP2 it probably would have been scrapped and we would have gone to FP3, so at least that way the fans got to watch it on TV. I’m trying to be positive!

“But it’s obviously a difficult situation and I don’t want to make fun of the sport, it’s the first time here, it’s a huge project and things unfortunately happened. I know no one wanted it but I guess they did.” They did the best they could with what they had. I know it’s late and everyone is probably a little grumpy, but at least we got in a little running. “