29/09/2023
NEWS STORY
Amidst the never ending hype in the build-up to the forthcoming Grand Prix in Las Vegas, one vital factor has been largely overlooked.
With names like Death Valley and the Flaming Mountains, like the world's other deserts, these places live up to their fearsome reputation, indeed during the summer, the former, located in California is thought to be the hottest place on earth.
However, like all deserts the searing daytime temperatures drop away come the night.
Due to the lack of humidity, the desert air cannot hold the heat radiated by the sand, which gets heated during the sunny daytime hours, and consequently temperatures fall rapidly at night.
Las Vegas, which is soon due to host the penultimate round of the 2023 season, sits in a basin in the Mojave Desert, and in November daytime temperatures average 21 degrees C (70 f) - down on the 40+ (104 f) peak of July - but drop as low as 5 (41 f) at night.
While FP1 and FP3 get underway at 20:30 (local time), FP3 and Qualifying begin at midnight, while the race starts at 22:00.
These are the sort of temperatures only really witnessed during pre-season testing in Europe and understandably the teams are concerned.
"It'll be a big challenge for us," admits Haas' Ayao Komatsu, "especially our team, with the tools we've got in terms of a pre-event simulation, more limited, let's say, than Mercedes, so we're going to have a big challenge on our hands.
"Yeah, a very different temperature window," he adds. "So we've got to get the tyres to work, but if I had to choose hot or cold, I would choose cold conditions at the minute. So hopefully you can get it to work and it's a challenge we're looking forward to."
"From the work that we've done, it's got many long straights, quite a few low-speed corners, not so much high-speed content so maybe a track similar to Baku, that sort of layout," says AlphaTauri's Jonathan Eddolls.
"The temperatures are going to be probably one of the biggest challenges," he admits. "I think we're expecting circuit 10 degrees of ambient, so very much like the winter test. But then, you know, in many years, we've done winter tests in Barcelona at those sorts of temperatures. So it's not going to be completely new to us.
"But definitely, it's quite a step away in terms of where we're going to be operating the car and tyres to what we're used to in a normal season.
"I think it'll just depend on exactly how cold it is," said Andrew Shovlin. "Because if the track is down in single figures, that's often a region where you go winter testing, you do a run, it's very difficult for the tyres to either get them switched on, or there may be graining and things. And then sometimes you just wait until it warms up a bit.
"So actually going to have to sort of race and qualify in those conditions, it will be interesting, but you just try and identify the risks with the new circuit, work out what your contingencies will be, whether you need any sort of specific car spec to deal with that, and we're going through those at the moment.
"As I said, if it's at the very cold end of predictions, it's difficult to know how they are going to work."