Max Verstappen rejects F1 format shake-up idea: ‘Sprint races are crazy enough’

Max Verstappen believes F1 “shouldn’t go too crazy” by making drastic changes to the race weekend format after suggestions that shorter races would improve the sport.

F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali hinted that the sport could benefit from shorter races and less practice in a bid to appease younger fans.

The former Ferrari boss feels that younger fans’ smaller attention spans mean they get bored quickly or watch the highlights instead.

In 2021, F1 introduced sprint races for three race weekends during the season.

This has since been upped to six weekends.

Speaking ahead of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Verstappen feels that sprint races in their current guise are “crazy enough”.

“Yes, I see the positives. People are making more money,” Verstappen told reporters at Monza. “But for me personally, I mean, I’ve talked about it many times. You know my opinion about it. But I also understand why they do it. To also make it a more exciting product on the day.

“Because I can understand, of course, when fans come to the track, it’s more exciting to see cars race than just lap around in practice. For us, it’s still very important to have practice. But I understand from a fan’s point of view that it can be a bit boring.

“But F1 has been like this since the 1950s. So I understand that sports evolve and stuff like that. But we shouldn’t go too crazy. I think a sprint race is already, from my side, crazy enough.

“You all know how I think about sprint races, but the [current] length of the race, I think it’s fine. I mean, yeah, sometimes one and a half hours, sometimes closer to [two].

“In other sports as well, sometimes you have an exciting game, sometimes absolutely boring and you fall asleep. That’s sport for you – you cannot always make it exciting, because if it’s always exciting, it becomes boring too.”

Verstappen on Red Bull woes

Heading into the new F1 season, Max Verstappen hoped to win a fifth straight title - a feat only achieved by Michael Schumacher.

However, McLaren have stolen a march on the rest of the field, despite the regulations remaining stable over the winter.

While Red Bull have made progress in improving the handling of the RB21, Verstappen has often been too uncompetitive to make a difference.

“It’s different,” Verstappen added. “This year, I don’t have these really big instability problems. Of course, we are not as competitive as we would like to be. It’s more just that I would like to go faster, but it’s not letting me go faster. It’s not a disaster to drive.

“Someone has done a better job than us. It’s just not  that easy, because if it was easy, everyone could do it in F1.

“It’s just a very complicated sport and small details can make a big difference. It’s not like we’re terrible. We’re not driving last. I’m still P3 in the championship. I’ve won races, but the standards of this team are very high, and we want to be here to win and not be second or third.

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel good. Do we want to be better? Everyone wants to be better in this team.”