Max Verstappen First day of F1 Las Vegas GP “Not as fun as expected”[F1-Gate.com]

Max Verstappen finished the first day’s free practice of the 2023 F1 Round 22 Las Vegas GP in 6th place. He said his first experience at the Las Vegas circuit turned out to be more fun than he expected. Verstappen, who had said he was unimpressed with the new circuit after driving it in the simulator, answered “no” when asked after practice if he enjoyed the track.

“No, I’ve driven on better tracks in my life,” he told the official F1 website. “I said that yesterday, so I don’t have anything new to discover.But I’ll give it a try anyway.”At the beginning of the first practice session, the water valve cover came off and collided with two cars, damaging both cars. Interrupted by that. The opening session was canceled after less than 10 minutes, and second practice was delayed by two and a half hours for repairs and inspections. The second practice session was extended to 90 minutes and ended without incident, with Verstappen completing 37 laps. Verstappen said the new track surface was starting to grip as his rivals covered similar distances. “It’s slippery,” Verstappen said. “Of course, I didn’t ride much in FP1 so it took a little time for the rubber to get used to it. “In the end I felt a little better. I was able to do the whole program and that was the most important thing today. think”. During the second session, which ended at 4am, track temperatures dropped below 15°C, making it difficult for drivers to keep tires, including soft compounds, warm for multi-lap stints. Verstappen said it would be difficult to decide which tires to keep for Saturday night’s race. “I think the one-lap soft is good,” Verstappen said. “Long runs were a little more difficult, and the soft tires seemed to be struggling quite a bit, so I immediately switched to medium tires. However, even medium tires don’t seem to be easy on long runs.” “So how can I improve my deg on long runs? There are still some things we have to consider to see if we can do it. I think we are in very good shape compared to other cars, but I feel like we could still do a better job. So for the race. I don’t think it will be easy to choose tires for this race.”