The Las Vegas Strip was illuminated by thousands of floodlights, and I was tracing its course high above in a helicopter. We were flying in between resort towers while Formula 1 cars screamed around the streets below. It was the first practice of the newly revived Las Vegas Grand Prix, and despite sitting in a vehicle that could travel at 150 m.p.h. there was no way we could keep up with them.
As we looked down, the scarlet Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr. emitted a puff of white smoke and a shower of sparks as it tore past the Bellagio fountains and Paris Las Vegas’s faux Eiffel Tower before grinding to a halt. The huge aerodynamic forces that these cars create to generate grip through the corners had dislodged a drain cover, and Sainz had hit it at 200 m.p.h. Ferrari later reported this had caused millions of dollars of damage to the vehicle, destroying its state-of-the-art hybrid power unit. On the way back from the heliport, my Uber driver joked about the state of the city’s roads: “Now the whole world gets to feel our misery.”
