'This isn't good for Las Vegas' - US sports journalist calls for F1 race move

Sad news for brand new business-brained American F1 fans who have have seen a few clips of Drive to Survive: the Las Vegas Grand Prix will not matter this season.

Kimi Antonelli might not wrap up the 2026 drivers' championship next time out in Austin (although there's a chance), but it's almost impossibly unlikely that the title will be on the line by the time F1 rocks up in the Nevada desert.

The solution? Move the Las Vegas Grand Prix to a relevant date so that it gets the champagne moment, obviously. Because Las Vegas (?) deserves (?) that more than other races (???), thanks to its...well, it can't be because of the great racing or the history of the circuit, actually. There's probably a reason in there somewhere.

Long-time Vegas-based sports TV figure Chris Maathuis has warned that Antonelli wrapping the title up a week before cars hit the Strip is 'not good for F1', calling for the race to be moved to a 'relevant weekend'.

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He went on to follow up with a complaint that the F1 championship setup is 'silly' for letting a driver wrap up the title before the last race of the year, before being reminded that gambling exists. 'Yes!!' he said. 'Didn’t factor in the betting angle. Now there is reason to stay engaged to the end'.

As tempting as it is to use the rest of the word count to dunk on this one specific guy, that would miss a broader point. That broader point being: this is the kind of audience that F1 is trying desperately to court in the US.

This is an audience completely subservient to the American way of doing things, complaining about the lack of an artificially dramatic postseason (i.e. the way that all sports work outside the US), and that a shiny but hollow American spectacle isn't being given the special big boy treatment.

These aren't F1 fans. These will never be F1 fans, because the product you're trying to sell them is anathema to them. Congratulations, you've created a group of 'fans' who don't watch your races but will complain about them anyway.

But hey, at least maybe they'll bet on it.

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