'There's more opportunity here': Guenther Steiner weighs in on Las Vegas races

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — When walking into Ghostbar at the Palms Casino Resort on Saturday afternoon, you could hear the crowd laughing before you ever spotted them.

That's because Guenther Steiner, the former Team Principal at the Haas Formula 1 team, was meeting fans and sharing more about his career in racing. You may remember that we spoke with Steiner last year, ahead of the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.

WATCH: Guenther Steiner speaks to Channel 13 last November

"I think what the organizers have done here with the Grand Prix, from the conception to make it happen, is something astonishing. All the population, for sure in the short-term, sometimes it was a little bit not so nice," Steiner said at the time. "When you do something different and for the first time, there will be some inconveniences. But I think we got the support and they have been great to let us do this. Thank you to all the Las Vegans for their help to make this happen."

I spoke to Steiner on Saturday to see if he felt the same way now.

"People tend to be critical about something new. The historic fans didn't like it. But in my opinion, if you don't like something, don't watch it. The race still happened. The race was fantastic," Steiner told me. "Obviously, last year, we hoped the manhole thing didn't happen. It was a very freak accident. But in the end, it was a good race. It was a good event. The things that needed to be improved, they were improved and I'm sure Las Vegas officials will improve it again after this year."

During Investor Day, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said Las Vegas has been a testing ground for Formula 1 to try out new ideas. I asked Steiner why he thought they picked Las Vegas instead of historic circuits like Monaco or Silverstone.

"There's more opportunity here. Changing people's minds is much more difficult than inventing something new where people have no history with it," Steiner said. "If you want to do something new, it's much easier to do something completely new than change something that already exists because then, you always fall back to what you did before. People say it's working. Why should I change it?"

And as for the future, Steiner said Las Vegas will play an important role in continuing to promote and develop Formula 1 in the United States.

"Formula 1 has 24 races. They cannot all be the same. They can't be cookie-cutter. It doesn't work," Steiner said. "With Las Vegas, if I would have said to somebody that in five years, we'll go down the Las Vegas Strip in a Formula 1 car, I would be in a mental hospital by now. Only Vegas can pull it off. It brings a new demographic to Formula 1. There's a different demographic here than in Austin, for example. I think it's good for the sport because everyone's included."