You can imagine that it was kind of Mickey Mouse. “It was too tight for the capability of those cars. In effect, the races on an extremely artificial course put fast, powerful race cars in an environment more suitable for…well…go-karts.
I got so much tire vibration on acceleration that the rear wishbone broke and took me out of the race.” Both years there was a lot of first-gear stuff, which is crazy. He called the layout “a wonderful, wonderful go-kart course. Mario Andretti, the 1978 F1 champion, competed in both Vegas races. If next month’s race along the Vegas Strip is expected to be a spectacle, the 1981 and ’82 races were something far less. It basically was a series of parallel straights connected by tight curves, and it sent drivers in a counter-clockwise direction, generally an outlier in F1 circles. In 19, the Caesars Palace Grand Prix was contested over a 2.2-mile course marked by concrete barriers.
Mario Andretti finished 16th and 19th in his two F1 races in Las Vegas in 19.
