The Formula 1 bandwagon arrived at Las Vegas to excite fans and whet their appetites for what will be one of the most highly-anticipated races in recent years in the ‘entertainment capital of the world’.
Lewis Hamilton was one of the star personalities to grace the city and vowed fans with a number of car tricks during the launch party of F1 including Las Vegas in next year’s calendar.
While fans were impressed with the donuts that Hamilton performed in his Mercedes W13, certain drivers from NASCAR called out Hamilton’s stunts and claimed that he was simply ‘copying’ their moves and not being original.
Erik Jones, a NASCAR Cup Series driver, believed that the show put on by F1 lacked originality as he called out Hamilton in his post on Twitter.
Why they gotta copy us. https://t.co/YPL5MEtJyh
— Erik Jones (@Erik_Jones) November 6, 2022
“Why they gotta copy us,” he replied on one of F1’s Twitter posts that demonstrated Hamilton’s trickery on the track.
Hamilton’s car had been fitted with underglow lights that helped focus attention on his car’s chassis.
Admittedly, this is something that NASCAR had introduced in 2020, but it’s fair to say that when the same trick was applied to an F1 car, it just looked a whole lot sexier.
Fans were divided on Jones’ post, with some claiming that the NASCAR driver was absolutely right for calling out F1 for copying its stunt.
Meanwhile, F1 fans felt that even though it may have been something that the sport adopted from NASCAR, they were happy enough to see the moves performed in F1 cars.
Here are some of the fan reactions on Twitter.
Wouldn’t say copying just F1 doing it better https://t.co/6BoosBV3CM
— Ian ✌🏾 (@GRoddy3x) November 6, 2022
don’t flatter yourselves https://t.co/7yK5HHF1dT
— Josiah🥑🕰️ (@bed_jartlet98) November 6, 2022
Copying or not, F1 did it bigger. https://t.co/9gnGrchp2z
— Peyton (@PTH_Vol) November 6, 2022
Others, meanwhile, sided with Jones in their belief that F1 needed to be more original.
Direct copy of NASCAR in Nashville https://t.co/poNCtHe6Wh
— IYKYK (@Drive2Parkway45) November 6, 2022
Exactly!!! NASCAR > F1 https://t.co/WVd8Ppk38v
— Landon (@landonchasefan9) November 6, 2022
F1 may have copied the concept from NASCAR, but fans will undoubtedly hope that the underglow lights become a permanent part of cars during night races.