Two-time world champion Max Verstappen has never hidden his negative opinion of sprints in Formula 1 and after today’s 100km race in Azerbaijan he called on the sport’s bosses to remove the format from the championship.
“Just drop it all. I think it will be important to go back to the basics we have and try to make it so that everyone can fight for wins instead of trying to introduce these artificial exciting moments,” said Verstappen after the Baku sprint.
He also commented on the changes to the sprint format that were introduced for the weekend in Azerbaijan. These included the running of a second sprint-only qualifier, which took the place of the second meeting session in the morning.
“If I have to be honest today during qualifying I got bored. I love when we only have one qualification and all the focus is on it, and it was yesterday. I enjoyed this qualification, but this morning I was like, ‘God, another qualification’. I just didn’t like it,” Verstappen explained after the sprint in Baku.