Formula One - 'It's 99% show and 1% sporting event': Verstappen tears a strip off Las Vegas GP

Formula One’s hopes to open the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend with a bang were dealt a blow when its reigning world champion, Max Verstappen, dismissed the meeting as “99% show and 1% sporting event”.

- Giles Richards

The Dutchman was scathing about what F1 hopes will be its biggest race of the year and a showcase for the sport.

This weekend’s meeting is the first to be promoted and organised by F1’s owners, Liberty Media, and what certainly was a show had begun in the early evening of Wednesday with an extravagant opening ceremony held on the start-finish straight. A series of acts including Kylie Minogue and John Legend were accompanied by lasers and fireworks before the festivities climaxed with the drivers elevated on lifts on to stages to wave to the crowd of approximately 30,000 in the new pit and paddock grandstand complex F1 has purpose built in the city.

Verstappen had not enjoyed the experience. “For me, you can skip this,” he said. “It’s not about the singers. We are just standing up there, looking like a clown.” So unenamoured was he that he had also declined to attend a party at the Wynn casino held by the F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali, because as he put it bluntly he had “zero interest”.