"It takes away that magic": Max Verstappen not a fan of sprint weekends

Triple world champion Max Verstappen mentioned that if he were a fan he'd be disappointed with the current sprint weekends as there isn't much excitement for the viewing public.

The Red Bull driver claimed his third sprint win this season out of five weekends without much fuss, winning with a margin of over eight seconds from the second-placed Lewis Hamilton.

However, speaking in the post-sprint press conference, Max Verstappen Pointed out the dullness of the sprint races as he claimed that they are nothing but a preview of what's going to happen in the main race on Sunday. He said:

"If I were a fan, I would just be disappointed because then you more or less know about the picture.

"If nothing crazy happens, you know what's going to happen tomorrow so I find that a bit… it takes away that magic of waking up on a Sunday morning or whatever, Sunday afternoon, and you turn on the TV and you’ve had qualifying but you're not sure which car is going to be quickest in most of the years and yeah, it takes that magic away, I find."

Before this Verstappen won the sprint events in Austria and Belgium. Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri won the sprint race in Azerbaijan and Qatar, respectively.

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Max Verstappen not "excited" by the current Sprint format

Max Verstappen stated that he feels a bit lost after both qualifying sessions as the sprint shootout creates more confusion and isn't significant enough for the entire weekend.

The Red Bull driver said, via the aforementioned source:

"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. I feel like we only need one qualifying on the weekend where you really put everything on the line and it feels great.

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

Many other drivers and team personnel agree with the opinion of Max Verstappen and are in favor of having more jeopardy in the sprint weekends to not make the whole affair so dull.

It will be fascinating to see what F1 comes up with heading into the next season to spice up the sprint weekends in 2024. To bring about a significant change, they may have to decide between holding separate championships for the sprints or integrating it in such a way that it truly affects both championships throughout the season.