Vegas Could Be A Indy 2005-Level Disaster – HTW Extra Heat

Posted on November 17, 2023 | by Dre Harrison It’s time for another edition of our weekly series, Hot Takes Wednesday: Extra Heat ????️ As you may know, Dre hosts our WTF1 podcast show, Hot Takes Wednesday. On the show, we take your spiciest F1 takes, and we rate them on a scale of 1 to 5 – 1 being that we strongly disagree and 5 that we strongly agree.  On this week’s show, Dre was back with WTF1 Talent member and Instagram star Caroline Smith to sit down and discuss your takes! If you want to listen to it in full, the episode is down below, and don’t forget the show can be found where all major podcasts are available, especially as it was a Sprint special! (Apple, Spotify, Google, you get the drill) Here on HTW: Extra Heat, we’re going to take a handful of the takes from the show and get the whole team to weigh in on your spiciest F1 opinions! ???? Take #1 – Move GP qualifying back to Saturday afternoon, and the sprint race on Saturday morning, re-open parc ferme in-between Dre: A bit conflicted on this one. On the one hand, I like the teams only getting an hour of practice and the potential for them to get it wrong on setup choices. It rewards effective execution. But the Saturday of a sprint weekend now feels disjointed with the 45-minute Shootout session followed by the four-hour wait for the sprint race. Moving the shootout to Friday evening makes more sense to me as you ramp up the stakes on Saturday. Leaning towards saying this is an improvement. Rating: 4 Charley: I really dislike sprint weekends, and I honestly don’t see a world in which I do enjoy them. So for me, it doesn’t really matter what format it is unless they want to throw something wild in there. But from listening to others, this could be an improvement on the current format, at least. The opening up of parc ferme could help avoid Sunday’s race being a replica of Saturday’s sprint race. Rating: 3 Hannah: I like the idea of having the sprint weekend actually spread out over the weekend. Right now Saturday seems like too much of a throwaway day. I admit I do get excited for Sprint Saturdays, but having the sprint race spread out over Friday afternoon/Saturday morning, and then bringing the normal qualifying to Saturday afternoon, is an idea that I like the sound of. It feels like it flows much nicer, as well as the big plus with reopening parc ferme in-between. Rating: 4 Take #2 – Because Drive to Survive focuses on the newer f1 audiences, the Brawn documentary will be better than any DTS season for longer-term f1 fans who want a more authentic narrative Dre: I get the logic behind this take. Brawn’s story is 15 years old now and a lot of the newer fans that have come into the sport via DTS are likely to have missed it. But I think Brawn is a great story for everyone. Who doesn’t love a good underdog tale with F1’s politics, drama and spice interwoven in it?  I’m not the biggest fan of DTS’s constructed narratives, but reality TV is what it is because it works. It’s why I watch Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares even when I know the restaurant’s definitely closing at the end. And who doesn’t love Keanu Reeves?! Rating: 2 Charley: Can’t people just enjoy both? The story of Brawn GP is what solidified my love of Formula 1, so bearing in mind that was many moons ago – I love Drive to Survive and binge-watch it all as soon as it’s out. Yes, it’s dramatic. Yes, it has a few constructed narratives, but I love TV that I can just sit, watch and enjoy without using up any more of my brain cells for the day. Just enjoy it for what it is, a fun series about your favourite sport. As for the Brawn documentary, it is incredible and well worth a watch… for everyone. Rating: 2 Hannah: I understand why someone might think this, with a lot of the long-time F1 fans complaining about the way DTS portrays certain moments during a season. I don’t agree that one will be better than the other, but I do agree with the hot take. On average, the longer-term F1 fans will probably like the new Brawn documentary more than DTS. That’s not to say new F1 fans won’t enjoy the Brawn documentary, and that older F1 fans won’t enjoy DTS. But for a lot of the older fans, this is what they grew up with, what they are used to, and will probably be something they prefer as DTS is literally made to attract new fans, which they are not. Rating: 5 Take #3: Las Vegas will either be the greatest race in years or a worse farce than Indianapolis 2005 Dre: I want to like Vegas, I really do. I’m a massive Americana guy, I can’t help it! This race is a massive self-promoted half-billion dollar gamble for F1 to keep trying to crack the US. And while I don’t think we’re getting an Indy 2005 disaster, there are a lot of ways this could go down like a lead balloon. It likely won’t be a sell-out, it’ll be cold, it’s going to have that US pomp and pageantry that can split the room, and I’m not sure the “Spiderpig” layout will be a hit. But I think we’ll be fine once the action start