It was really good and fun to watch for multiple reasons:
Tyres/grip: It’s hard to get them to temperature and keep them there due to the long straights. Braking before corners is required. When braking hard into a corner due to a fight for position, we saw lock-ups, going wide, and then the overtake. So pressure from behind got rewarded with small errors and the position. Drivers had a hard time with the throttle and grip as well. Suddenly we had a fight for position through two corners and with inside - outside line, also overtakes through corners with elbows out fighting for the position. F1 racing suffers from too much grip for everyone - Las Vegas track design solves this.
Body kit/speed<>grip: Due to high track speed, e.g. Ferrari was running the smaller rear wing they also use during the Monza race. It grants a few more km/h on the straights but costs downforce in the corners. Depending on team decisions, they had an easier time to overtake on the straight, even without DRS, but fell victim to others in brave corner-overtakes. Which is again a combination of tyre temperature and downforce in the car setup or even the car’s overall design.
Track limits: It’s in a city, there are walls. Nobody even tried to cheat, as mistakes are punished immediately by the wall. Suddenly it’s no problem to stay on the race track. Drivers were even using the corner safety zones and doing a loop there, just to stay on the track, which is the lighter immediate punishment.
The race itself was pretty good, everything around it, from having the police throw out paying customers on FP2, the rushed track inspection that then caused two accidents, cringe events, and Toto having a meltdown to the time table (pretty much targeted at Chinese time zone) were pretty bad, IMO.
I haven’t seen the race but is he right? Was it a good race or just hype?
It was a good race. Not sure about the best race of the year, but certainly up there.
Hype. Was okay but nowhere near the best.
It was alright. I would say on par with Brazil in terms of racing.
It was really good and fun to watch for multiple reasons:
Tyres/grip: It’s hard to get them to temperature and keep them there due to the long straights. Braking before corners is required. When braking hard into a corner due to a fight for position, we saw lock-ups, going wide, and then the overtake. So pressure from behind got rewarded with small errors and the position. Drivers had a hard time with the throttle and grip as well. Suddenly we had a fight for position through two corners and with inside - outside line, also overtakes through corners with elbows out fighting for the position. F1 racing suffers from too much grip for everyone - Las Vegas track design solves this.
Body kit/speed<>grip: Due to high track speed, e.g. Ferrari was running the smaller rear wing they also use during the Monza race. It grants a few more km/h on the straights but costs downforce in the corners. Depending on team decisions, they had an easier time to overtake on the straight, even without DRS, but fell victim to others in brave corner-overtakes. Which is again a combination of tyre temperature and downforce in the car setup or even the car’s overall design.
Track limits: It’s in a city, there are walls. Nobody even tried to cheat, as mistakes are punished immediately by the wall. Suddenly it’s no problem to stay on the race track. Drivers were even using the corner safety zones and doing a loop there, just to stay on the track, which is the lighter immediate punishment.
The race itself was pretty good, everything around it, from having the police throw out paying customers on FP2, the rushed track inspection that then caused two accidents, cringe events, and Toto having a meltdown to the time table (pretty much targeted at Chinese time zone) were pretty bad, IMO.