Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is confident Max Verstappen won’t walk away from Formula 1 any time soon over his dislike of the sprint race format.
Verstappen has repeatedly derided the format which F1 introduced in 2021 and has expanded to six rounds this year. After the first running of the revised, standalone sprint race in Baku last weekend the world champion said F1 should “just scrap the whole thing”.At the previous round Verstappen said F1’s experiments with its format and expansion of the calendar would make it “not worth it” for him to continue competing in the series. However he has the longest contract of any driver on the grid, keeping him at Red Bull until 2028.
Horner said today “we don’t see [it] as an imminent risk” that Verstappen’s dislike of the format, and F1’s determination to use it at more races, will drive him away from the sport.
“But of course he has an opinion, he’ll always speak openly and voice his opinion. And I think that it’s so hard to look too far down down the road.
“Did Fernando Alonso think he’ll be racing at 42? Probably not. Lewis Hamilton is in his latter thirties. So the future’s just so difficult to predict, but I think it’s great that drivers do have opinions and don’t just become stereotypes.”
However Horner believes there is scope to improve the sprint format following the changes which were trialled last week.
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“The sprint weekend last weekend was just full-on action from the moment we got there through Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” he said. “I think decoupling the sprint from the grand prix is actually a good thing compared to what we had previously.
“But I do think we still need to work on the regs to iron out [problems]. Personally I don’t think it’s right that you can’t change the car after one practice session. That to me seems ludicrous not to have an element to be able to engineer other fixes into a car, particularly on street circuits that are changing so rapidly.
“The tyre usage needs looking at as well. I personally would prefer to see free tyre usage, or at least free tyre usage in the in the third sector of sprint qualifying.”
However Horner is prepared to “give it time and just see” whether the format works over the rest of the year. “It’s natural change is always unpopular.
“But I think we need to let it settle, do the six races this year and then reflect on it at the end of the year with all the data, all the knowledge and say, actually what did it do to the sport? Does it add something, does it bring something and what needs perhaps tuning on it?”
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