“We gotta make sure that people are taken care of”: Lewis Hamilton urges F1 to be more ‘respectful’ of locals ahead of Las Vegas GP

Amidst the disregard for the F1 Las Vegas GP from the locals, Lewis Hamilton urged management to be more respectful towards the residents.

F1 will be returning to Las Vegas for the first time in over 40 years for the inaugural Las Vegas GP. The preparation for the race has been going on for the past nine months but has caught pace within the last couple of weeks.

With the preparation, however, there has been an unexpected setback for Formula 1 management from the residents of the city. It has been reported that the preparations have impacted the lives of the people severely.

Some of the locals claimed that "no one gives a crap about the sport," which is a strong statement given F1's expectations of the participation of people in the Grand Prix. Considering this, Lewis Hamilton earlier spoke on Sky that the authorities must take care of the residents and be respectful towards them.

"I’ve heard there’s been a lot of complaints about the event being here. I think we have to be respectful of the locals here, so many people here working so hard. We gotta make sure that people are taken care of."

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Lewis Hamilton's earlier statement reveals the issue that Mercedes could face in Las Vegas

Mercedes had a rather poor weekend in Brazil earlier after George Russell's retirement from the race followed by Lewis Hamilton's P8 finish (in the main race). It was found out after the Sprint that the W14 had extremely high tire degradation, which hammered their overall pace down.

Other than that, Lewis Hamilton later revealed that the main issue was with the car's floor. The floor is responsible for creating downforce in corners, but the W14's aerodynamics have not helped with it. Lewis Hamilton said,

"My guess is that the floor is not working. The floor is not sucking it down, so that pushed us to go to a higher wing, and then we’re just massively draggy on the straights," PlanetF1 quoted him.

Because the floor does not generate enough downforce, the car's wing angle has to be increased, which then affects their speed on straights. If this remains to be the case, the F1 Las Vegas GP could be tough for the team. The track is mostly straights with a couple of wide hairpins. If the straight-line speed and tire degradation issue is not resolved, it could be yet another tough race for the team.