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The 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve gave a more 'traditional' start to the inaugural Las Vegas GP by marrying his fiancé Giulia in the Paddock.
The venue for the F1 Las Vegas GP has been set up with all kinds of preparations, even featuring games like roulette on the Paddock. But among that, there is also a chapel with the "Race to the Altar" slogan, for any driver interested in tying knots with their partner. Former driver and '97 world champion Jacques Villeneuve eventually became the first one to do so earlier today.
The chapel also featured the words "It's light out and together we go," inspired by the famous lines said by David Croft at the start of almost all Grands Prixes in Formula 1. Villeneuve's former Williams race engineer Jock Clear was the best man of the wedding. The couple was also greeted with the F1 intro which made sure that the sport's vibes didn't miss out on the bright lights of Sin City.
Ferrari climbs to top as FP2 comes to an end at F1 Las Vegas GP
After the first practice session was brought to a very early end because of issues in the track involving a severed manhole cover, FP2 was delayed and extended to a total of 90 minutes. This was the first time that the teams had the opportunity to collect raw data from the track, and it seems that Ferrari has quite some control over the track.
Charles Leclerc was on the top of the timings with soft tires, clocking in 1:35.265 on the 6.201-kilometre track. This is rather a short time for the length given the long straights that the track has. Top speeds on the Las Vegas Strip went as high as 345 kph for many drivers with DRS, reminiscent of the final straight in Baku.
Following both Ferraris was the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso in third place, only half a second down to Leclerc, and then came the Red Bull of Sergio Perez. He was ahead of the Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas, who was one place ahead of 2023 world champion Max Verstappen.
On that note, here is the complete result of the session:
There were quite some moments that the drivers shared as many of them were on the track pushing for the first time. As expected, there were multiple lockups and many also went wide at the end of the long straights.
