The United States of America is a country where there are a multitude of places with strange names. One day, when I have the time, I must visit Pennsylvania and drop in on Intercourse, Climax, Fertility, Bird-in-Hand and Blue Ball. This would also allow me to visit Punxsutawney to catch up with Phil the whispering groundhog and I might even be able to fit in Accident, Maryland, just across the state line.
I have a long wish list when it comes to daft names including Zap, North Dakota; Cucumber, West Virginia; Hideout, Utah; Hungry Horse, Montana; Coward, South Carolina; Parachute, Colorado; Peculiar, Missouri and Seven Devils, North Carolina.
It is a little known fact that the Las Vegas Grand Prix actually took place in the town of Paradise, a misnomer for what is just dusty desert that has been built over. I am sure that puritans would have something to say about foolish men building houses on sand but when it comes to Sin City, they are rich foolish men, although a number of them were foolish enough to be gunned down by fellow gangsters.
On the Sunday morning after the Grand Prix I headed wearily south on Interstate 15 bound for California, while most of the F1 circus flew off to points between Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi: from desert to another. I had other things in mind. I-15 was, I believe, the road that Hunter S Thompson drove up in 1971, in the trip chronicled in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. This is a vaguely-fictional account of a journalist travelling to Las Vegas to report on a motor race. I was doing the same, but going the other way and the only kind of mind-altering activity going on was a serious travel fatigue.
I wondered as I drove past Seven Magic Mountains whether this was really a geographical feature, or whether it was some Thompson-esque reference whch had been made real by someone trying to make some money. In Las Vegas, fact and fiction blur in a curious way – and everyone is trying to make money. The city is the ultimate expression of the philosophy: “if you build it, they will come”.
It does not always work out but in the case of Las Vegas, what could possibly go wrong? It offered gambling, booze and whores.
I won’t go into the whole story but it was all to do with the workers at the Hoover Dam in the early 1930s, who wanted to blow off steam when they had time off.
I have to admit that I have never been a fan of “America’s Playground” and I don’t consider it to be “fabulous”. It is not my kind of place. Some folks think it is glamorous. Others think it is fake, seedy, sordid and disagreeable. I just find it sad. As I wrote in my column in GP+ magazine, it is “a place of a thousand screenplays, set against the tacky pleasure palaces; a place for mid-life crises, for Spring breaks and gold-digging without spades”. It is a place that aims to empty the pockets of everyone. The gangsters have gone and have been replaced by CEOs of listed companies.
There is a joke about Las Vegas, which I think is apt: “the best things to see in Las Vegas are the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon”.
The weird name thing does not just relate to towns. People have strange names too as any fan of NASCAR will tell you. Drivers have included Fireball, Hut, Possum, Spook, Stew, Stink, Dink and several Cottons and Rustys. There was even a Judge.
During our weekend we met a Sahara and a Tequila. The first, presumably, got her name because she was conceived in the casino of that name; and one can speculate that Tequila’s name may have come because the drink was the cause of her conception. We didn’t get out much but breakfasted each day at Denny’s (because it was cheap). Sahara worked there. We met Tequila because of Justin Bieber.
To be quite honest, I am not 100 percent sure what Bieber looks like at any given time, because he seems to be quite different each time our paths have crossed. There have been an array of different hair colours and encroaching tattoos, not to mention strange disguises, presumably designed to stop people recognising him.
This did not fool Nurse Nina, Tequila’s friend, when they were breakfasting on the table next to our’s at Peppermill, the kind of place that Dean Martin probably hung out in. It is supposed to be a “must-visit” destination (which means it charges extra because it is famous) and we only went there because there was a queue at Denny’s. Suddenly Nina shouted: “It’s Justin Bieber!”. Tequila was not sure, but then a slightly pink-cheeked waitress arrived to confirm that yes, it was the star in question and that he had been “very nice” when she was serving him.
Anyway, as a result of this kerfuffle, we got talking with the pair and Tequila told us she was an Uber driver and said she was unimpressed by the Grand Prix because of all the road closures. Others, who were making money, felt differently. I read in the local paper a couple of days later that the F1 race had created more gambling than any motor race in the history of Vegas, many times more than the Daytona 500. The biggest bet, so the paper said, was someone who had wagered $200,000 on Max Verstappen to win. The odds were lousy (of course) but he won another $100,000.
The biggest bet of the weekend was actually made by Liberty Media, who plonked down $500 million to build the circuit and hold the race. It was a difficult thing to do and I have to say that I was impressed by what they achieved. There was a great deal of negativity in the media before the race, for no obvious reason, which I felt was largely unfair. Putting down $500 million was an impressive commitment and almost everything ran as intended. It was not perfect, but new races never are. The negative reporting led to a much-reported angry outburst from Toto Wolff.
“How can you even dare trying to talk bad about an event that sets the new standards to everything?” he said. “Give credit to the people that have set up this Grand Prix, that have made this sport much bigger than it ever was.”
In the end the naysayers flopped. An attendance of 315,000 over the four days was a very decent figure and anyone with any sense of economics could work out that if a town has 151,000 hotel rooms and the race attracted around 94,000 spectators, the hotel prices were always going to fall as hoteliers tried to get what they could in the final days.
I am sure at some point there will be an economic impact study that will be favourable for the city. And I am sure also that many who were not there saw the event on TV and decided that they would try it out next year. I met one in California…
In the past F1’s owners has tended to extract more from the sport than they have invested, but Liberty’s faith and heavy investment in the Vegas event was impressive and should be properly acknowledged. No, they did not do it for altruistic reasons, they did it for money.
There was a setback in the first practice session on Thursday, when a water valve cover was dislodged by Esteban Ocon’s Alpine and was hit by Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari. Both cars suffered heavy damage. Much of the reporting about this incident was wrong. The metal cover was not sucked out of the ground by aerodynamic forces, nor dislodged by tyres.
It was the result of one of these covers not being quite flush with the tarmac. It was only about 3mm out, not really enough to be seen by the naked eye, but it was enough for it to be hit by the plank under Ocon’s car, which tore the whole thing out of its mounting.
The speed with which a solution was found was impressive, although it did mean that the FP2 session had to be delayed until 02.30 on Friday morning, when the cars ran for 90 minutes without drama. This was done by filling 40-odd water valve holes with sand and then adding bitumen, which was compacted and then left to cure for an hour.
It worked.
But in the time lost, union rules kicked in and the security staff could not stay longer and so spectators were told that they had to leave. It was not right, nor fair, for the spectators but there were no other choices. Could it have been predicted? Perhaps. Could the unions have been pre-warned that there might be problems? In a perfect world, perhaps. But it would have been money wasted if there had not been a problem.
Liberty Media will no doubt pay out to those impacted and perhaps the tone of the communications could have been better, but in the end, it was a storm in a teacup, whipped up by those who did not understand what an extraordinary achievement this was. In part, I cannot help but think that some of the negativity came from journalists who had had their noses put out of joint by the Media Center being outside the paddock, with a security check between the two. This made life a bit more complicated. Liberty realised quickly that this was a mistake, even before the incidents mentioned above, and I suspect (and expect) that the same will not happen again next year. Why bite the hand that feeds you?
One of the reasons that there were a few tetchy words was because everyone who has attended all the races in the last two months was tired. It has been tough and there are a lot of people talking about the need to balance the desire for more profits with the need for the people involved to be able to lead abnormal (rather than insane) lives. The problem with F1 is that it is too successful. Every time it is faced by a new challenge, it succeeds and so is asked to do the same again… I remember the first time a triple-header was suggested, the Jonahs said that it would be the end of the world, but it has become quite normal. But there has to be a limit.
The rumours in the paddock in Las Vegas were limited because all the energy has been focussed on everyone getting from one race to the next. There were two big pieces of news: the Aston Martin team selling some of its shares to US private equity firm Arctos Partners, and the announcement that General Motors has registered as an F1 power unit manufacturer for 2028.
No details of the Aston sale were made public but the word is that the deal is for $100 million for a 10 percent share in the team. This values the team at $1.1 billion. Stroll thinks the team is worth more than this, with his expectation believed to be in the region of $1.6 billion, but so far no-one has been willing to pay that sum. Stroll has thus taken the $100 million on offer and by doing so has reduced the money he has spent (about $600 million) and still has 90 percent to sell. It may be that the Arctos deal is designed to set a new bar for the team’s value, in the hope that in the months ahead new investors will be willing to pay more. It is also rumoured that Stroll has been trying to convince potential buyers of the F1 team to invest in the troubled Aston Martin car company, to help that business. There is no sign that Arctos has done that but Stroll may keep trying as raising new funds for the car company is not easy.
The future of the Stroll family in F1 and in the car industry remains uncertain, but there is little doubt that Lawrence sees the opportunity to turn what were two distressed firms into big profits, while at the same time advancing his son’s F1 career as much as possible. There is no doubt that if his father did not own the team, Lance Stroll would be out by now.
The GM deal is interesting as it clearly supports Michael Andretti’s bid to get an F1 entry. It will probably work because GM would not play around helping Andretti unless it was serious about an F1 bid. But this does not mean that Michael will get an entry for 2025, as he would like. He does not yet have an engine deal (an agreement with Alpine was allowed to lapse, which was odd). If he gets an entry he can insist on an engine supply from an existing power unit manufacturer. But time is running out as power unit manufacturers need to have at least a year’s notice to commit to such a deal.
Thus a 2025 deal is probably impossible. Andretti wants this so that he can be a party to the current commercial agreement, rather than a future one, which is unlikely to have such favourable terms. At the moment Andretti needs to pay $200 million and invest about $300 million to get things going, but this will buy an asset which would be worth $1 billion. The other teams argue that this is not fair because the new team is very unlikely to be competitive for at least five years, but will be getting a share of the prize fund, will be taking sponsorship that might otherwise go to them and the extra team will impact on the valuations of all the teams. They estimate that over multiple seasons as Andretti is getting up to speed, this will cost them billions.
The teams are happy to have Andretti if they see value being added to the sport, but they currently do not. They point out, quite rightly, that the Andretti organisation has never built its own single-seaters race cars and uses chassis provided by specialist manufacturers.
Andretti and his backers think they can do it, but the other teams see any new entity as being a passenger in the years ahead. This has got nothing to do with what it is portrayed as being: producing better racing with more cars. This is about money and both sides see the other as greedy.
F1 will eventually let Andretti join the party now that GM is involved, but the question is when that might be. It might even be as late as 2028…
Building a modern F1 power unit is difficult and very expensive and there have been stories circulating that GM may turn to Ilmor Engineering. In recent years, Ilmor has been involved with development work for Honda in Formula 1, while at the same time helping Chevrolet in IndyCar racing. It has also been working in collaboration with IndyCar to create a hybrid element for the series. Ilmor designs and builds the Chevrolet IndyCar engines in England, but also has technical center in Plymouth, Michigan, which works on developing these engines.
The modern Ilmor Racing was one division of the original company which was spun off when Mercedes took over the original Ilmor back in 2005. The second Ilmor is co-owned by Mario Illien and Penske Racing of Delaware. According to Britain’s Companies House, both parties own more than 25 percent of the firm but not more than 50 percent. This suggests that it is a 50-50 arrangement. GM owned shares in the original Ilmor, which built Chevrolet IndyCar engines in the 1980s. llmor then began building F1 engines in league with Mercedes and that would ultimately lead to the firm becoming wholly-owned by Mercedes in 2005.
GM had a number of staff in the paddock in Las Vegas, including Eric Warren, the executive director of GM Motorsports, Jim Campbell, the VP of GM Performance & Motorsports and Russ Oblenes, the director of GM’s Performance and Racing Propulsion Team.
More interesting was the presence of Mario Illien, his two CEOs Paul Ray and Steve O’Connor and the appearance on Saturday of Penske, who made a low key visit, his first to F1 in many years.
The other big rumour concerned the FIA, which precipitated the whole problem by agreeing to give Andretti an entry. No-one is sure why this happened because it creates problems that no-one needs.
The idea that this is good for the sport works on a very superficial level, but if the FIA believes this to be the case, it is very naïve. The thing is that it makes no sense to stir up trouble given the very obvious weaknesses of the FIA. The primary issue is that the federation is utterly dependent on F1 from a financial point of view. If Formula 1 stopped giving the federation money, the FIA would have the life expectancy of a snail on a speedway. So it is wise not to rock the boat. Causing trouble is not likely to win concessions. If the FIA pushes too hard, all hell could break loose, or alternatively there could be ructions within the FIA as some of those involved seek to stop what is currently going on.
Although there is still nothing official on the subject, the FIA President is reportedly keen to appoint an F1 Commissioner. There is no such role defined in the FIA rules, and consequently there is no process to appoint one. The only rule which might be applied is one which relates to FIA officials at each race. These include safety, medical, technical and media delegates and “the FIA may nominate a representative of the President”. However, these delegates have set roles, which is to ensure that all the regulations in their field of competence are respected, to make any comments they judge necessary and to draw up reports about such events. They are not there to negotiate with F1 and the teams.
But, politics, so they say, is the art of the possible and so maybe the President can do as he pleases and no-one will make a fuss. No-one except Formula 1 and the teams…
There was precious little other news in Las Vegas, although there were whispers suggesting that the area around the pit building, in the block that is owned by Liberty Media, could be used for “driver training”. It would not require much work to create a mini-track around the facility, which could be used to generate revenue on a daily basis.
The only other point of note I picked up was that Ferrari did something remarkable in the third quarter of the year: it sold more hybrid cars than conventional ICE models for the first time. The hybrids amounted to 51 percent of the sales…
Anyway, to round off the story, my route south on I-15 took me to Roach (named no doubt after a resident in the local hotel), but then I got stuck in a traffic jam caused by the local police, who closed the road because they did not trust drivers to get through the Mojave Desert in a sand storm. This messed up my plans significantly, so I won’t be buying any California Highway Patrol Christmas calendars any time soon, as I do not wish to have pictures of nannies wearing police uniform.
By the time I got to Barstow it was getting dark. So I drove through the darkness down Old Woman Springs Road, passing Rattlesnake Canyon en route to Palm Springs. Eighteen hours later I was heading back to Vegas but decided on a different route to avoid traffic jams in the desert. Instead I went down towards Thermal, where they are planning for an IndyCar race next year, but turned off before I got there and went up into the desert to Cactus City and Desert Center, passing the Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. It was a wonderful wilderness with a road that yumps across the landscapes they use to train US Marines. I was aiming to visit London Bridge at Havasu Lake City, but I ran short of time and so cut across to Needles, the Dead Mountains Wilderness and arrived (well, I didn’t actually stop) in Searchlight, Nevada.
The secret is that there isn’t a searchlight. Never has been one. Go figure…
The Green Notebook gives a taste of the insights into F1 that Joe Saward produces each week. For more information go to https://www.flatoutpublishing.com/jsbm/
joeblogsf1 
Hi Joe,
Great post, as usual. I wanted to reply to your feelings about the Highway Patrol nanny state mentality. Maybe this rare in Europe, but several times a year here in the US we have massive accidents caused by people driving full speed into low visibility situations on the interstate highways. It can be snow, rain, fog, smoke, and apparently now, even sandstorms. Hundreds of cars and trucks may be involved, and dozens of people may be killed, but we keep doing it. Individually we may usually be semi-intelligent, but collectively we are often idiots.
The first thing everyone says on the news is ” why didn’t someone warn us, or close the road?”
I can’t help but see the obvious similarities between this and what FOM and the F1 teams are complaining about. Letting new teams into formula one is a long standing tradition. Think back about the teams that have survived, and, some that haven’t. ( Brabham won 2 world driver championships.) My point is that no one knows what is going to happen, and anyone who can afford it should be given an opportunity to show us what they can do.
The position of FOM and the Teams is indefensible, and just makes them look weak. They should know by now that it is a competition not just to win , but to survive. If you can’t do it you don’t deserve to be there! No one owes them anything, and they should welcome the competition!
Jack Brabham actually won 3 WDC the Brabham team won 4 WDC (one each for Jack and Denny and two for Piquet when the team was owned by a former used car salesman whose name escapes me at the moment)
You make an interesting point. Possibly you hint at the real issue. These days F1 teams are more financially stable than ever. Not just the Ferraris and the teams at the front of the grid, but even the teams with less notable performance.
So maybe this is the crux of the matter. The teams are saying that if you want to enter into F1 you must do as Mercedes did, as Red Bull did, and buy and existing team. That is good for the valuation of the current teams (I’m not so sure that it is good for F1, it may be, but I think there’s an argument to be had).
As Joe reports, Lawrence Stroll has just had the market value of his team set at a billion dollars. Now if Andretti can enter and survive (I didn’t say “compete”) for half a billion, then what is Mr Stroll’s team worth?
“…then what is Mr Stroll’s team worth?”
More without Lance in it!
On one road trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles along I-15, we stopped at Zzyzx, at the end of Zzyzx Road. There isn’t much to see there these days but the name makes it stick in the mind many years later.
Hunter S. Thompson’s autobiographical Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Ah, yes; one of the greatest opening lines ever:
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
Yes, a great book in the sense of amusing, readable, and with some (sort of) profound insights. I particularly like Thompson’s description of the crest of the hippie lifestyle tide visible on the mountains, if you squinted the right way.
“So now less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
The movie with Bill Murray was pretty good also, if you viewed it the right way.
Doh, Johnny Depp….
Thank you for your column. There was a Nascar driver, Richard Leroy Trickle. He was quite good and nationally known as Dick Trickle.
The Mojave Desert between Las Vegas and California is a very hostile environment. The local law enforcement is quite wise to prevent our Kardashian obsessed populace, i.e., oblivious of everything else, from getting themselves into trouble. Plus, they will have their supper at Denny’s interrupted by having to go rescue them.
In the old days (70’s) a new race track needed to have held a previous race prior to work out the logistics. An example was the Formula 5000 race at Long Beach in 1975.
Any insight as to when this changed and why?
No idea
Interesting to see Joe now changing his tune concerning Andretti, in the same way the teams will have to concerning their entry.
It’s not changing my time. I’ve always said that if they got an OEM it would be impossible to refuse them.
It’s good to have OEM. However, has the sport made any plans if there is a financial crisis and the OEM have to drop out?
Other people will arrive
Great notebook Joe. Loved watching the Las Vegas Grand Prix. I thought it was a big gamble (even in Vegas) by F1 to invest such a large amount in one race but I take my hat of to them. It worked. Even the track was interesting and offered plenty of over taking opportunities and under the lights… just wow.
I don’t want to be negative but it did make me wonder if it knocked another nail in the coffin of the Monaco Grand prix. Despite its history, the car’s too big for track, and there is simply no over taking. Qualifying and driver skill good though and yes i have been there.
Unless the Monaco folks are complete idiots, the Monaco race will continue as long as F1 exists.
an interesting paragraph about FIA F1 Commissioner – there were stories on some webs not that long ago telling that ‘ FIA has appointed an F1 Commissioner ‘ – none other than Dieter Rencken who, it was said, has been working as an advisor to President for about half year by now . . . what conclusions can we gather from all this?
Everyone in F1 has drawn the obvious conclusion…
Sorry for being thick about this, but I don’t know what the obvious conclusion is. Please talk down to me about it…
Hi Joe, it hasn’t been a great season for the championship. What’s everyone in the paddock thinking for next year? Any chance you can dig out those stories of you and Senna over the winter break. Many thanks!
Probably not on your route, but Sugartit, Kentucky.
I had the pleasure of attending the Caesar’s Palace Grand Prix in 1981 and 1982. There was little interest in the races, even among the guests at the hotel. I remember riding up and down the elevators with people like Niki Lauda and Brabham Team owner Bernie Ecclestone, and I was the only one who knew who they were. The morning of the ’82 race I went down to the coffee shop for breakfast, and was seated next to Michele Alboreto (Tyrrell) and Riccardo Patrese (Brabham), already dressed to race in their fire suits. No one paid them the slightest bit of attention…
Hey Joe, did you mean speedway bike when referencing the snail? Ever been interested in the two wheel sport?
No
Hi Joe, is Logan Sargeant a shoe-in to race for Williams next year?
Yes
Probably, because of several reason he is a shoe-in. To start he is from the Williams Driver Academy, American, no acceptable alternatives, and it takes two years to evaluate a driver.
Not probably…
Certainly.
So – uniquely ? – all the drivers in all the teams at the end of one season (’23) will be the same drivers in the same drives at the beginning of the next. I don’t think that has ever happened before.
My favorite US place name is Tight Squeeze, Virginia. I smile every time I pass it while driving down US 29 to VIR.
Lovely Piece of writing as always, Thank You. Always used Vegas as a cheap hotel stay for visiting all the amazing National Parks near by, Grand Canyon, Zion etc. As a Union man, Unions are here to protect us from robber billionaires who profit off of the backs of others hard work while ignoring the rules, regulations, Health + Safety and Tax Laws as set out by countries and states. If the track marshals were in a Union am sure they would get paid from the Billionaire organization that profits other billionaires.
Magic commentary Joe as usual. Makes my day each time you publish.
And the mountain range named Grand Tetons which roughly translates as large tits.
Indeed it does
Sorry, Brabham won 4 WDC’s, not 2. I forgot about the 66 and 67 titles. A few years before my time.
I was quite taken with Humptulips WA, which I passed through a couple of months ago. Alas the name has nothing to do with what the locals get up to in their spare time.
Fantastic notes as ever.
The only thing confusing is the commentary over why the FIA should choose to – as it were – poke the bear.
Since the FIA rules state a maximum of 12 teams, surely he FIA were *obliged* to properly consider any application? And under the terms of one or more legal settlements, if they did not do so (out of deference to commercial issues) would that not have been prima facie evidence of non-compliance?
I’m sure Andretti’s people were smart enough to ensure the FIA drew the correct conclusions. Hence now it is incumbent on Liberty, not the FIA, to deal with this hot potato 🙂 Don’t you agree?
Wait and see…
Hi Joe, as an F1 journalist of many years do you get to have one to one interviews with F1 personnel ? , be it drivers, team principals, PR managers etc? , if so when was the last time you did so and who was it ?
Yes. The last was last week. Mike Krack.
Anything you can share following that one to one ?
No
About 100 years ago, before I was known as Russell I was known as Rusty. In 6th grade (ages 11 and 12), we took a school field trip from near Baltimore to Pennsylvania’s Amish country. In the gift shop, half of us bought street signs giving direction and distance to Intercourse. Only about half of us knew what it meant, but we all knew it was risque. My guess is that the current crop of kids all know what intercourse means, but less than half know what Amish country is.
I live in Palm Springs and have to say you have good taste in back roads. The drive south from Barstow is a classic American West shot up the hill to the peak above Lucerne Valley. The back route through Desert Center goes through Vidal Junction, where Wyatt Earp settled for a time to do a little gold mining. Next year if the winds are down, get off I-15 Ivanpah Road exit, turn west on Morningstar Mine Road and the south on Kelso-Cima road through the vast Mojave Wilderness down to Old Route 66 and Amboy. This is the true West.
Thank you. I’ll check it out.
Thanks for the Notebook (and GP+ reports). I have to be content with highlights on UK TV, but the race was very enjoyable and surprised me with the speed and many overtakes, even those assisted by DRS, many of which were reversed MotoGP style at the next corner because of the excessive speed of the overtaker. You didn’t miss anything in not seeing London Bridge, as it looked the same as in London – except for its incongruous situation. I remember Lake Havasu City because I broke a tooth eating wild rice and didn’t get it fixed until two days later in Flagstaff!
I went to Lost Wages ten years ago for the Rugby 7’s, we probably ate at the same Denny’s opposite Mirage!! In USA terms its cheap, but it’s also really decent to, a step up from the fast food places. I have to say too that unless gambling it your thing there is nothing else to go there for, it’s artificial and cheap but an experience worth saying you have done.
I rarely comment in here Joe. But as a 60yearfollower, and as a regular reader who looks forward to both the informed and intelligent F1 insights you have provided for a long time as well as your travelogues of the many roads we have both driven/ridden, this is just a heartfelt note of acknowledgement and appreciation.
Many, many thanks from NZL. I look forward to 2024 although February seems a long way away.
I shall now immerse myself with cricket in the interim. Joyeux Noel to all.
“The gangsters have gone and have been replaced by CEOs of listed companies.” – a distinction without a difference.
I hope you get some nice rest. After that, any idea why Roger Penske was at Las Vegas? 1) I don’t see him hanging out at casinos; 2) I don’t see IndyCar racing back at LVMS.
Penske’s a racer.
Plus, he played a huge role in bringing big time sponsors into racing. This requires putting on a great show for both sponsors and fans.
So, given all that, where else would he have been?
If a shareholder sells 10% of a company’s stock for $100 million, that values the company at $1 billion. It would be $1.1 billion if an additional 10% of new shares were issued by the company and sold. But I understand Stroll to have sold 10% of his holding, meaning the money went to him and no shares were issued, rather than new shares being issued by the company and the money going to the company. I know it’s only $100 million, but that is a lot of money to some people, even these days.
They have things nowadays where the money paid is added to the valuation. Hence $1.1 billion