Verstappen still struggles to get excited by sprint success

AUSTIN, Texas — Max Verstappen reiterated his criticism of Formula One’s sprint race format, saying it takes away from the excitement of a race weekend.

Verstappen has been a vocal opponent of sprint races since they were first introduced in 2021 and has not warmed to them despite changes to the format to improve the spectacle.

This weekend’s United States Grand Prix is ​​being run in a sprint format, meaning qualifying for the grand prix took place on Friday, a second qualifying – known as a shootout – took place on Saturday , who then set the grid for the 19-lap sprint. race later the same day.

The full 56-lap Grand Prix will begin on Sunday as usual.

The sprint race earns a maximum of eight points for victory, with additional points awarded in descending order up to a single point for eighth place.

“If you want my honest opinion on sprint weekends, I’m not really excited about it,” he said after taking pole in the shootout and winning the sprint at the Circuit of the Americas.

“I just feel like once you’re done [Friday] in qualifying, you’re a bit lost. I feel like we only need one weekend qualifier where you really put everything on the line and that’s awesome.

“This morning too, I put him in P1 and I said to myself ‘pfft it’s a Saturday, there aren’t many points for the race anyway’. And apart from that, like now we did this race, everyone knows more or less what’s going to happen tomorrow between all the cars in terms of pace, so it takes away a bit of the excitement.

“If we hadn’t done today, and we only have the qualifying we had yesterday, we don’t really know what’s going to happen in the race, it’s exciting to turn on the TV because we don’t know, and also we I don’t know… but now we know.

When Lewis Hamilton, who finished second in the sprint race and was sitting next to Verstappen at the press conference, suggested to the Red Bull driver that he looked bored while winning, Verstappen added: “I don’t bore me, but also as a fan I would just be disappointed because you know the picture more or less, if nothing crazy happens, you know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

“So I find it takes away a little bit of that magic of waking up on a Sunday and turning on the TV and having qualifying, but you don’t know which car is going to be fastest – most years – and you have to that.” the magic goes away, I think.”