Hamilton on Las Vegas GP: 'People here are going to love the sport'

The Las Vegas GP is completely different to every other race. People question whether three races in the US is too many, whether Americans are racing fans at all or whether they think it is all marketing. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, thinks that coming back to Vegas is a good thing, provided it also leaves an impact.

"The sport continues to grow," the Brit indicated at the press conference ahead of the race weekend. "It is a business ultimately, and I think you'll still see good racing here. It's just such a big country. To really tap into the market here and really captivate the audience here, I think we needed to have at least two races. One wasn't enough."

The seven-time world champion is certainly appreciative of Las Vegas itself: "This is one of the most iconic cities there is and unique cities that they have here amongst the other amazing cities they have in America. All the lights, the show, it is a big show, for sure. It's never going to be like Silverstone, but maybe over time, the people in the community here will grow to love the sport."

Lewis Hamilton is fine with the sport growing and thinks that if his film with Brad Pitt comes out, F1 will grow even faster. He himself would like to see a race on a 'new' continent: "I'm onto Stefano because I really want to get the race in South Africa, or in Africa."

The driver also sees the bigger picture beyond race weekends: "It's not just a circus that comes and then we leave. We should look at how we can positively impact the community here. I brought 60 young girls to the circuit from local communities who never would have the opportunity to go to the track. Hopefully, now they're inspired to be engineers and go back to their school and telling all their friends. And so we've gotta make sure we're also doing stuff like that."