Max Verstappen may have been dismissive in his opening assessment of last year’s inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix but by the time he victoriously crossed the line under the neon glow of the Strip he had, as so many before, fallen to the wiles of Sin City. On the floors of the casinos amid the miasma of smoke and bellows of adulation at the roll of a dice, Verstappen is recognised as a man who makes his own luck and no city in the world is better placed to acknowledge that.
As he stands ready to claim his fourth consecutive Formula One world championship, Las Vegas is the perfect backdrop for this singular driver. F1, which promotes the race, has spent a fortune on establishing it perhaps as the most striking example of turning a race weekend into an event. Each one a Super Bowl was the grand ambition when Liberty Media took over the sport in 2017 with races in “destination cities” and in Las Vegas it has that and the potential spectacle to match with a world champion ready to cash out again in Nevada.
