FORMULA ONE needs more than a new theme tune and a paddock full of A-listers to keep the Americans interested in this procession.
Max Verstappen cruised to victory as the sport served up another dud with his team-mate Sergio Perez in second.
A star-studded grid including film stars Tom Cruise and Vin Diesel, plus tennis star Roger Federer, plus countless fame-hungry photo-taking influencers, were all treated to a special driver introduction segment before the race.
Rapper LL Cool J provided the words and producer will.i.am conducted an orchestra set-up on the grid.
There is also a toe-curling new song from the latter with rapper Lil Wayne that is hilariously bad, as F1 tries to appeal to a new audience.
The music will be used at various stages over the F1 weekend and there is a video that is so terrible it could be parody.
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The lyrics are hilarious with gems such as “you a small fry, need ketchup, fall behind or you can catch up”.
And “Got ’em braided like Lewis, got a Mercedes like Lewis” plus “your girl my co-captain. Drivin’ like Max Verstappen.”
The flashy intro saw each driver called out from behind a curtain to plumes of dry ice while they were all given top billing. To his credit LL Cool J at least got all their names right while poor old F1 legend Sir Jackie Stewart was caught up in the melee and manhandled by security guards as he tried to drag Federer to speak with Sky’s Martin Brundle.
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It was a mess and drivers have slammed F1’s latest attempt to appeal to US audiences.
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Lando Norris, who finished 17th, said: “None of the drivers like it, but it’s not for us at the end of the day.
“It’s just, we do a lot of things. Probably the only sport where we’re so close to the fans, we do so much publicity for the fans.
“As drivers we all just want to sit down and focus on what we need to focus on and not do so much TV and everything.
“We’ve said it. You can’t just keep putting things in and making us do more and more, you know. There’s not one other sport where you do this.
“We do so much. There’s a limit to how much we should do. We’re here to focus on doing the job and not just be in front of a camera all day.”
Once the stage was cleared, the influencers scraped off the grid and the racing finally got underway it was all too easy for the Dutchman as the rest of the field pulled over and allowed him to make his way up from ninth on the grid to take the chequered flag.
After an initial slow start, Verstappen started scything his way through the field.
By the fourth lap he was up to sixth place with a beautiful double overtake of Charles Leclerc and Kevin Magnussen.
He then pulled off a stunning move with the help of the DRS to pass George Russell to move up a place before hunting down Carlos Sainz, who was in third place.
Much further back and trundling around in 13th Lewis Hamilton was not happy as he complained over his team’s radio that he did not think he’d make it to the end of the race.
He was reassured by his race engineer but struggled to get past Alex Albon’s Williams in ninth place before a late surge pulled him up to finishing sixth.
But Verstappen was having no such problems. He swooped past Sainz unchallenged on lap 14 to go into third.
A lap later he overtook Fernando Alonso to go into second place and started cutting into Perez’s lead.
The Mexican was called in for fresh tyres on lap 21 and had a quick 2.2 second pit stop, but the tyre change promoted Verstappen into the lead.
The world champion set about pumping in quick laps as he tried to open up enough advantage over his team-mate to make his necessary pit-stop.
Verstappen finally pitted from the lead at the end of lap 45 promoting Perez back into the lead.
But the Mexican’s advantage lasted just a few laps as Verstappen made up the 1.6 second deficit and passed him with ease on lap 48.
It means Verstappen has a 14 point lead in the championship after winning three of the first five races this season.
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If the 90,766 capacity crowd – plus the bumper TV audience – expected the drama and excitement depicted in Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’, they didn’t get it.
And that leaves F1 with a bit of a problem, because this was certainly not the advert they needed to show off their sport to the United States.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
