Burning rubber and neon lights as F1 hypes up Vegas

With burning rubber under the neon lights, Formula One gave its fans a taste Saturday of what they can expect from next year's Las Vegas Grand Prix while the sport's leaders promised that this time the sport is in Sin City for the long run. 

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate George Russell took to "The Strip" in their race cars along with Red Bull's Sergio Perez, revving their engines and performing doughnuts to the delight of thousands of fans and Saturday night revellers. 

F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali had talked of the sport making a "statement" return to the city during a ceremonial painting of the start line, and Hamilton delivered the words that fit the hyped-up mood. 

"This race is going to be for sure, the greatest race of all time," Hamilton told the crowd after his barricade-bashing trip up and down The Strip, the casino-lined stretch of street that has become synonymous with Vegas nightlife. 

Whether the night race, scheduled as the penultimate Grand Prix of the 2023 season, lives up to that ambitious billing remains to be seen, but it is clear that the return to Nevada is going to be very different to the two underwhelming races held here in the early 1980s. 

Those events were held on land adjacent to the Caesars Palace hotel and were mocked as being a race in a 'parking lot,' adding to the sport's struggle to gain a foothold in the US market. 

But F1 has enjoyed a huge growth in interest in the States in the past few years, boosted by the Netflix series 'Drive to Survive' which has brought the sport's leading protagonists to life. 

This season F1 successfully added Miami to the circuit along with the established United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, and Vegas will