Sprint Races Take Away 'Magic' From Race On Sunday According To Verstappen

Tuesday, 24 October 2023 at 21:00

Updated at Wednesday, 25 October 2023 at 21:49

Red Bull racing F1 driver Max Verstappen explained his stance on the sprint weekend format after the 2023 United States Grand Prix sprint race.

Max Verstappen has won three of the five sprint races so far this season and placed on the podium in every single one of them. While he has a good record in sprint races, Max Verstappen revealed he does not "get excited" by sprint weekends.

Verstappen won the sprint race at Circuit of the Americas after starting from the pole position. As Quoted by Racing365, the three-time World Champion told the media after the sprint race:

"If you want my honest opinion about the sprint weekends, I don't really get excited by it. In qualifying, I just feel like once you complete qualifying, you're a bit lost."

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The Flying Dutchman would rather like only one qualifying session. One of the main problems of the Sprint races is the lower amount of points awarded to drivers. Verstappen explained:

"I feel like we only need one qualifying in the weekend where you really put everything on the line and it feels great. Like you put it on P1 [in the Sprint Shootout] but I'm like: 'It’s a Saturday, there’s not many points anyway for the race."

Similar to what Carlos Sainz said in the past, Verstappen also thinks that the sprint race reveals what will happen on the first 1/3 of the race.

"Besides that, like now, we've done this race, everyone more or less knows what's going to happen [in the Grand Prix] between all the cars in terms of pace, so that takes a bit of the excitement away from it."

As a driver, it is always exciting to compete for the win, put it on the podium, and stand on the top step. However, the 26-year-old thinks it is not as exciting for fans to watch.

"I’m not bored, but if I were a fan, I would just be disappointed because you more or less know about the picture."

Verstappen is yet another person joining a large group of people already criticizing the Sprint Weekend format after Christian Horner called for an improvement after the sprint race on Saturday.

"Nothing crazy happens; you know what's going to happen tomorrow, so I find it takes away that magic of waking up on a Sunday morning or whatever, Sunday afternoon, and you turn on the TV."