Max Verstappen was unimpressed with the opening ceremony for Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, remarking that he felt like “a clown” during the entire occasion.

To celebrate the inaugural round at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, an event with live musical performances and the drivers being raised on large platforms to the crowd was held.

However, Verstappen, who previously stated that F1’s expansion into Las Vegas was “more for the show than the racing”, vented his disapproval of the ceremony.

“For me, you can skip this,” he said. “It’s not about the singers. We are just standing up there, looking like a clown. I mean, yeah.”

Asked how much he considered a show and how much of it a sporting event, Verstappen reiterated his stance that the Las Vegas GP is “99% show, and 1% sporting event.”

The three-time champion concedes he’s not enthused by the opportunity to race in Sin City for the first time in his career.

“Well I’m looking forward to trying to do the best I can, but then I’m not looking forward to this,” he mentioned in relation to the show. “You have some races where you always look forward to it a little bit more than others.”

Expanding further, Verstappen added: “Not a lot of emotions to be honest. I just always want to focus on the performance side of things, I don’t like all the things around it anyway. I know of course in some places that is part of it, but let’s just say it’s not in my interest.”

However, the Dutchman did admit that he could “understand” the sport’s continued approach towards maximising the growing interest towards F1 in the US market.

“You can look at it two ways, business side or sport side. Of course I understand their side as well. I’m voicing my opinion on the performance side of things,” he commented.

“We are not a stakeholder, so we just go with it. They decide what they do, right,” he continued. “I would do the same if I was the owner, I wouldn’t listen to the drivers. It’s my sport, I would do with it what I want if that would be the case.”

Verstappen also downplayed that his status as a household F1 name could cause the sport’s owners to consider making changes to reduce the focus on the spectacle.

“I don’t know, I guess they still make money if I like it or not, so it’s not up to me,” he contended. “But I’m also not going to fake it, I just always voice my opinion on positive things and negative things. That’s just how I am.

“Some people like the show a bit more, I don’t like it at all. I grew up just looking at the performance side of things and that’s how I see it as well. So for me, I like to be in Vegas, but not so much for racing.”

Pressed on whether he believed he could make a difference by speaking out, Verstappen retorted: “It’s also not my aim that it makes a massive difference. But when you ask me a question and I feel like I want to answer it, I’ll answer it in an honest way.”

“If someone wants to go in this direction, you want a lot more show attached to the programme, then I guess we have to deal with that,” he added. “As long as everything goes well they can say everything is working well, let’s see how long fans also like this.”

Verstappen also discussed his dissatisfaction towards the track layout, explaining that this generation of F1 cars are too cumbersome for street venues.

“I don’t think it’s that exciting, that’s the only thing,” he noted. “I think already for me a street circuit is not that exciting, especially with these new cars, they are just too heavy.

“When you have low grip that doesn’t help. The scenery will look great, driving through the strip, but the layout itself is not the most exciting. Driving an F1 car is a lot more fun with a lot of high-speed corners, but around here there is not many high-speed corners.”

Christian Horner has revealed details about his battle to keep Adrian Newey at Red Bull after the legendary Formula 1 designer came within “half an hour” of switching to Ferrari.

Off the back of four consecutive double world title wins with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013, Red Bull slipped from their seating atop the pecking order amid F1’s switch to V6 turbo power units in 2014.

The regulation shakeup heralded the beginning of Mercedes’ reign of dominance and paved the way for Vettel’s departure from Milton Keynes to Maranello.

Storied F1 designer Newey then also looked set to follow the German had it not been for a meeting with Horner in an English pub.

“We went from winning ’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, four on the bounce, and then a massive regulation change to the engine and our engine supplier completely missed the target,” Horner told the Eff Won podcast last week.

“And at that point, Vettel leaves because of the engine, Adrian came very close to leaving, he was within about half an hour of signing [for Ferrari].”

Newey is undoubtedly the sport’s most decorated designer, having played a role in 12 Constructors’ championship-winning cars.

Having helped the likes of Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all to Drivers’ titles with Williams, Newey went on to do the same with Mika Hakkinen at McLaren before being pried away from Woking to new-start Red Bull in 2006.

After transforming Red Bull into a title-winning force in under a decade, Horner was acutely aware of the risks that came with losing Newey from his arsenal.

“Ferrari came hard for him,” the Red Bull Team Principal continued. “They promised him the world. You can have a Hollywood lifestyle, fly into the factory from Monaco every day and you won’t pay any tax and you can design a road car and this, that and the other.

“I managed to persuade him to stay by saying: ‘We’ll do a road car. If you want to do a road car, we’ll do a road car.’

“He said, ‘Well, how?’ – and I said I have no idea, but we’ll find a way. We’ll make it. We’ll make it happen.”

What came from the conversation between the two Red Bull stalwarts was the starting point for Newey’s Valkyrie project produced with then-technology partner Aston Martin.

“I went to [then-Aston Martin CEO] Andy Palmer and said: ‘Look, we’ve got arguably the best designer of all time, you’ve got two great brands. We’re not going to finance the car but it makes sense to bring these two things together,'” he added.

“And that’s literally in a pub in England, that’s how it happened.”

While Red Bull’s relationship with Aston Martin came to an end in 2020 ahead of Lawrence Stroll’s rebranding of Racing Point the following year, the 1,160hp, 6.5 Litre V12 Valkyrie began production in November 2021.

In October 2023, Aston Martin unveiled plans to enter the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship with the Valkyrie AMR Pro.

Red Bull has revealed its third and final fan-inspired livery of the season that will be used throughout this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Ahead of the season, Red Bull announced that it would be giving fans the opportunity to design its livery for the three races in the United States this season.

The RB19 featured a revised livery with pink and teal lines in Miami, while it sported the colour scheme and star of the Texan lone star flag on the side of its car in Austin.

As part of the Make Your Mark competition, 10 entries made it into a shortlist and were put to a vote, with Lindsay Palmer’s design emerging as the winning submission.

“Congratulations to Lindsay, who really put Vegas’ iconic stamp on the design, capturing the energy and excitement of both the city and the team,” Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner said.

“[I’m] very much looking forward to seeing it racing around the streets of Las Vegas. From what I have seen on the sim though, that long straight is an incredibly fast one, so you are going to have to keep a close eye on things as the cars fly past under the bright lights of the Strip.

“It is going to be a special race made even more special by celebrating with a fan-designed livery as we head into the final US race of the season.”

The special livery features a shade of purple running down the side of the car and many featured references to the eccentric nightlife scene associated with Sin City.

Those include frequent pink and yellow light flashes, a Las Vegas sign, poker chips and a pair of ace of spades playing cards.

Red Bull has become the fifth team to release images of a unique look for the inaugural race at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, with Alfa Romeo also set to unveil a livery.

2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button is optimistic that Red Bull won’t dominate the sport again next season, predicting that an “upset” could be on the cards.

Having managed to win 10 of the last 11 races in 2022, Red Bull has since emerged victorious in every grand prix bar one this season with only two rounds now remaining.

With its closest rivals from last year – Ferrari and Mercedes – recovering from opening the year with concepts that had hit a development ceiling, both Aston Martin and McLaren have capitalised to also materialise as one of Red Bull’s nearest contenders.

But while Max Verstappen has claimed a record-breaking 17 wins – including 10 in a row – Sergio Perez has only recorded one podium finish since the summer break.

Button believes the huge disparity between the two Red Bull team-mates across the second half of the campaign demonstrates the chasing pack is gradually closing in.

Although the Briton accepts that a period of stability in the regulations makes it tougher to catch Red Bull, he has been impressed by McLaren and Mercedes’ progress this year.

Asked if the competition must replicate the type of innovation that saw Brawn steal a march on its rivals in 2009, Button told Sky Sports News: “Well, you don’t have the rule changes that we were lucky enough to have. I also just think the sport is even more competitive now. You know, there are so many big teams fighting at the front and one tiny slip-up and you’re the fourth-best team.

“So to catch Red Bull’s difficult, but they’re getting closer. I mean, Brazil wasn’t a great example, but this second part of the season you’ve seen teams like McLaren, Mercedes, both fighting very closely with the Red Bulls.

“Max has had that little advantage, but his team-mate hasn’t, so we could have an upset next year.

“I don’t think it’s going to be all Red Bull’s way. This year was an exceptional year for that team, and I don’t feel it will be the same next year, which is what the sport needs. We need a little bit of a mix up.”

In Brazil McLaren’s Lando Norris beat Verstappen to pole position for the Sprint and began the restart early in Sunday’s race alongside the Dutchman on the front row.

Although Norris was able to closely track Verstappen through the opening laps and lined up a move on Lap 7, Verstappen coasted away towards a comfortable win.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella believes the main performance differentiator now separating the side and Red Bull is related to the latter’s evident edge on tyre degradation.

“I think the difference is mainly in terms of lap time on used tyres,” Stella explained in Brazil. “We have seen that in new tyres, we can fight for position.

“But as soon as the tyres degrade, then it would appear like Max, Red Bull, they can just have less degradation. The tyres were degrading maybe one-tenth every two laps.

“It’s a significant amount of degradation and if you can limit that, after 10 laps in a stint, this is tenths of a second, so I think that’s where they are superior at the moment.”

Red Bull is reportedly set to end its sponsorship arrangement with Honda’s MotoGP squad at the end of the 2023 season, according to Austrian publication Speedweek.

The Austrian energy drink brand has sponsored the Japanese manufacturer for nearly two decades since 2006, the year Honda won the title with Nicky Hayden following a thrilling battle with Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi.

According to Speedweek, Red Bull has elected to cut short its deal with Honda to move to Gresini with Marc Marquez, who announced last month that he would be leaving the brand after ten years and six premier class titles to join the Italian outfit on a satellite Ducati bike.

It will retain title sponsor Repsol for 2024, though it’s currently unknown whether Honda’s current uncompetitive spell twinned with the loss of Marquez will prompt the Spanish lubricants giant to call time on its 30-year relationship with the marque.

Rumors abound that Luca Marini has been selected as the man to succeed Marquez alongside 2020 MotoGP world champion Joan Mir at Honda in 2024.

These rumors were strengthened on Monday following the Malaysian Grand Prix after Marini’s current team – his half-brother Valentino Rossi’s VR46 operation – shared an image of Marini wearing Repsol leathers as a child. This hint could be taken that Marini’s deal to move to Honda could be a done deal.

Current Moto2 form-man Fermin Aldeguer, who has secured wins in the last two intermediate class races in dominant fashion with the Speed Up squad, has been tipped as the most likely successor to Marini at the VR46 Ducati outfit alongside Marco Bezzecchi next term.

Ex-Formula 1 winner Felipe Massa believes Red Bull would be “wise” to keep Sergio Perez, insisting that nobody else could beat Max Verstappen in the same team.

Perez has endured a torrid campaign, scoring only two wins to Verstappen’s 17 and currently trailing his team-mate by a seismic 266 points in the Drivers’ Championship.

That has prompted repeated speculation that Perez could be moved aside, despite the Mexican retaining a contract for 2024 and Red Bull denying that he will be replaced.

But with Red Bull still wrapping up both titles with record rounds to spare this year, Massa admits he views no reason to break up the Milton-Keynes squad’s current partnership.

“As long as Max is happy and the team wins both the Drivers’ championship and the Constructors’ championship, I think it would be wise to leave things as they are now,” he told Dutch magazine Formule 1.

The Brazilian, who shared a team with three World Champions during his extensive F1 career, is also convinced that displacing Perez would impact Verstappen negatively.

“Max is visibly feeling good and wins almost every race. For him, any change would mean a deterioration,” Massa added.

Massa reckons that Verstappen’s success is unparalleled and even the likes of Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton would even struggle to usurp the Dutchman at Red Bull.

“What Max is showing this season is of an unprecedented level,” he claimed. “Even if you put Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso in the other car, I’m not sure much would change. Maybe a little bit, but believe me, they wouldn’t beat Max either.”

However, Massa acknowledges that the continuous intense scrutiny surrounding Perez’s future derives from the ambition for a close title fight amid Red Bull’s dominance.

“Let’s be honest – we’d all rather see the championship decided in the last lap, like in 2021 in Abu Dhabi,” he explained.

“If you reason like that, of course you wish for the best driver on the grid after Max to take Perez’s seat.”

Despite encountering a mid-season slump that comprised a run of five consecutive Q3 absences, Perez could secure second in the championship this weekend in Las Vegas.

The 33-year-old holds a 32-point advantage over Hamilton with only two rounds remaining, meaning he only needs to avoid being outscored by six points or more.

Having already wrapped up both championships, Red Bull is aiming to lock out the top two positions in the Drivers’ standings for the first time in its F1 history.

Sergio Perez has cautioned that the cooler temperatures expected for the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix won’t be favourable for Red Bull.

Formula 1 is embarking upon its maiden visit to the Las Vegas Strip Circuit this weekend, with the evening sessions set to provide the coldest conditions of the entire season.

That has prompted concern regarding the warm-up of the tyres, particularly after complaints from several drivers in Brazil over the consistency of Pirelli’s dry compounds.

Although Red Bull has won all but one of the 20 rounds to be held to this point, Perez is wary that the unique conditions could open the door for a rival team to steal an edge.

“I think it’s something that is going to be very present there, and probably that will not be something that favours us as a team but it’s something that we’ve got to keep in mind,” he said.

“Those things are very hard to simulate, also knowing what sort of wind direction we’re going to have.

“Simulators these days, there is so much they can do and so much you can base on them, but I think it’s more the knowledge we’ll have on that sort of thing.”

Despite there being apprehension over the conditions, Perez is optimistic that the street circuit, which features a 1.900 km straight, will produce exciting racing on Sunday.

“I think it will be good for racing, it was very long straights with big braking zones so I do expect that it will be a good track for racing,” he added.

Perez will be aiming to end the season on a positive note by bagging a victory in one of the final two rounds, having not triumphed in a race since the Azerbaijan GP back in April.

The six-time race winner believes his recent results have disguised the progress he’s made following an extensive run in Red Bull’s simulator to counter his previous torrid run.

Asked how much more preparation he would be putting in ahead of Las Vegas, Perez answered: “I think a lot. With all the learnings we are taking weekend-by-weekend, I think it’s important that we keep that trend.”

Perez, who could mathematically secure second in the Drivers’ Championship this weekend, is also anticipating to be backed by lots of Mexican supporters in the Sin City.

The locals were left massively disappointed when the 33-year-old retired on the opening lap of his home event after making contact with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at Turn 1.

“After last weekend [Mexico] probably they’re not too keen! But there are still a lot out there and I do expect a lot of support in Vegas,” Perez added.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes that Daniel Ricciardo was “badly advised” to snub a contract that would have put him on parity with Max Verstappen in 2018.

Having tied down Verstappen’s future earlier in the season, Red Bull was then locked in negotiations with Ricciardo as it aimed to retain its driver line-up for the long term.

However, Ricciardo eventually opted to turn down Red Bull’s renewed terms, leaving for Renault before then moving on to McLaren, where he was axed after only two seasons.

The Australian proceeded to return to the Red Bull fray earlier this year, earning a Formula 1 reprieve with the AlphaTauri team when Nyck de Vries was ousted in July.

Horner has revealed that Ricciardo, who has openly noted his intent to replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull, informed him of his regret to leave for pastures new four years ago.

“Daniel is a great guy, who was very badly advised earlier in his career,” Horner stated on the Eff Won podcast recently.

“Everybody f***s up at some point and I think he recognised that he made a mistake, he had not good advice around him at the point he left us and he could see that Max was growing, and probably didn’t realise just how good he was going to be.”

He added: “It was obvious at that stage that Max was coming and you could just see the raw talent, it just needed polishing a bit. So we gave Max a contract at the beginning of 2018 to secure his future.

“And Daniel I remember being upset at the time. He suddenly felt that he didn’t want to be the support act here, and I could tell he was starting to think about being a bigger fish in a smaller pond. He got a lot of noise in his ear about money on the table.

“I spoke to our owner Dietrich Mateschitz before the Austrian Grand Prix and I said: ‘Look, it’s a bit marginal with Daniel [regarding him signing a new contract], can you just show him some love, because Helmut [Marko, Red Bull advisor] is obviously very pro-Max? Just balance things out and let him know that you want him?’

“So he took Daniel upstairs after the race in Austria, and they were gone for well over an hour and then they reappear both with smiles on their faces.”

Horner disclosed that Mateschitz had pledged to present Ricciardo with the exact same terms that Verstappen had signed.

“I said, ‘What did you agree with him?’ and he said ‘We’ll just give him whatever Max is on.’

“I was like: ‘Wow, do you know what we pay Max?’ and so I gave him the number and he said, ‘Who the f*** agreed to that’ and I said, ‘Well, you did.’

“He said: ‘Oh that’s a lot of money, but he’s a great guy, so let’s do it, give him the same deal that Max has.’

“So his [Daniel’s] agent is obviously jumping through hoops at the time, and that was for a two-year deal.”

Horner also leaked that Red Bull had even been prepared to offer Ricciardo only a one-year extension amid concerns over its imminent switch to Honda engines for 2019.

“We went to Hungary, we got all the paperwork sorted out. Then his manager came to me and said, ‘Daniel’s really nervous about the engine situation, we’ll do one year.’

“I spoke to Dietrich, he said ‘Look, it’s about relationships, it’s not about contracts. If he wants a year, give him a year.'”

However, the now eight-time F1 race winner decided to accept Renault’s proposal, which Horner concedes he initially didn’t take seriously when the news was delivered.

“He rings me, and he’s like, ‘I’ve just got off the plane. I’ve been thinking on the flight on the way here. I’m not going to sign the contract. I’m going to take another contract.’

“I was like ‘Wow, okay, have Mercedes or Ferrari come through with something?’ And he went, ‘No, I’m going to sign for Renault.’

“Because Daniel’s got a sense of humour, I was convinced he’s taking the p**s here. ‘You’re not going to Renault, stop f*****g about, just tell me when you are going to sign that contract.

“So after about 10 minutes, he finally persuaded me that he was gonna go to Renault, and it was disappointing.”

2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button has revealed he tried to join Red Bull for 2009, before his Brawn GP fairytale unfolded.

Button entered the 2009 season with a cloud over his future, following Honda’s sudden decision to withdraw from F1 at the end of 2008.

Luckily for Button, Team Principal Ross Brawn saved the team and together they embarked on an incredible season, with the British driver winning sixth of the first seven races en route to a memorable title.

14 years later, Hollywood superstar and petrolhead Keanu Reeves is retelling the story in a documentary airing on Disney+ November 15 – but Button revealed on This Morning that dream almost didn’t occur.

 “I tried to get out of it, because the team didn’t look like it was going to exist,” Button said.

“So I asked around and my manager spoke to Christian Horner about a drive at his team and the junior team and they said: ‘No, all the contracts are done.’”

The radical revolution of F1’s technical regulations in 2009 enabled Brawn, via its double-diffuser innovation to steal a march on the competition, sealing both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles, despite faltering in the second half of the season due to a lack of funds to develop the car.

Red Bull emerged as Brawn’s closest challenger in the latter half of 2009, prior to dominating the sport for the next four years.

Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull secured four successive Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles from 2010 to 2013, whilst Button switched from Brawn to McLaren.

Had there been room within the Red Bull hierarchy in 2009, perhaps Button could have secured more than the single title that he retired with.

Hindsight aside, Button’s reality enabled one of the greatest F1 stories to unfold and after missing out on a drive at Red Bull his focus switched back to rescuing the failed Honda project.

“We found some people that were interested in owning the team, but I don’t think it would have worked out that way,” he added.

“Ross coming in and actually buying the team for a pound, with his leadership, is a big reason why this worked out.

“We had to cut and shut the car as well. The car was made to work with one type of [Honda] engine and then we had to go and ask – plead – for somebody to give us an engine to put in the back, to fit it in the car. A lot of money was spent on this car.

“It’s not a fluke that we were competitive in 2009, but then we had to get another engine and the guys did an amazing job of fitting it together.

“We went testing, we were quickest at the first test that we did and everyone had been testing for days before that.

“So that’s when it clicked and we thought we’ve got something strong.”

Button thought right and Brawn GP’s success was enough to attract the interest of Mercedes, who bought and rebranded the team for the 2010 season.

That eventually culminated in an onslaught of title success in F1’s hybrid era, which included seven Drivers’ and an unprecedented eight straight Constructors’ titles from 2014 to 2021.

Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner believes that Sergio Perez’s Formula 1 title hopes in 2023 unravelled when he missed an “open goal” at the Miami Grand Prix.

Heading into Miami’s second-ever F1 event, Perez and Verstappen had won two races apiece to leave the Red Bull drivers only one point apart in the Dutchman’s favour.

Perez was handed a golden opportunity to lead the Drivers’ Championship for the first time in his whole F1 career in Miami when he bagged pole position and Verstappen was resigned to starting ninth after being caught out by a red flag at the end of qualifying.

However, Verstappen charged through to overtake his team-mate with 10 laps to go to preserve a lead in the standings that would only continue to grow from that point.

While Verstappen proceeded to register a record-breaking 10 consecutive race wins, Perez encountered a torrid run that saw him fail to reach Q3 in five straight rounds.

Addressing the key moment the title battle swayed away from Perez, Horner said: “I think there was a decisive moment this year, which was probably in Miami, where Checo had if you like an open goal.

“He’d won two races in Azerbaijan and Saudi, and you could see his confidence was high. And I think that Max winning that race, having been caught out by a red flag in qualifying, starting down in ninth and that he took the lead within a very short period of time, I think mentally that was quite a brutal one for Checo to deal with.

“And then on top of that, then came Monaco the next race, and then things compound. I think that Max is just relentless. He’s then just hitting aces every race from there onwards.”

Verstappen has since accrued 17 victories this year, opening up a sizeable 266-point advantage over Perez, who has only scored one podium following the summer break.

Amid repeated speculation over his Red Bull future, Horner believes the team can get Perez back to his early-season form by returning his mindset to the right place.

“If you see Checo’s performances in the first part of the year. Bahrain, very, very tight with Max, that the race in Saudi was a great race between the two of them, pushing each other really hard. Very fine margins. His race in Azerbaijan, winning the Sprint and the grand prix there. Those are the kind of performances that we know he’s capable of,” Horner explained.

“And I think it’s just getting him back into that mind frame and to get the most out of him, to get him back to those level of performances.”

Horner has also sympathised with the challenge Perez has partnering Verstappen, citing his belief that any driver would struggle against the reigning champion.

“I think being Max Verstappen’s team-mate is probably the hardest job in the pit lane,” he added.

“He’s operating at such a high level and it’s relentless. So the mental aptitude that you need to be able to deal with that every time you see a piece of data, it’s like ‘wow how did he do that?’. That takes a certain strength of character to be able to deal with that.

“The form that he’s in and been in for the last three, four years, he’s just operating at such a high level that it would be tough for any driver on the grid.”