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Verstappen Slams Las Vegas GP as '99 Percent Show'

Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen speaks to the press after the opening ceremony for the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. ANGELA WEISS / AFP
Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen speaks to the press after the opening ceremony for the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. ANGELA WEISS / AFP
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Verstappen Slams Las Vegas GP as '99 Percent Show'

Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen speaks to the press after the opening ceremony for the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. ANGELA WEISS / AFP
Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen speaks to the press after the opening ceremony for the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada. ANGELA WEISS / AFP

Formula One world champion Max Verstappen has blasted this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix as "99 percent show" and says he isn't looking forward to the race.

The Red Bull three-time world champion criticized the new street course and said Wednesday he had no interest in the razzmatazz around the event.

"It's 99 percent show and one percent sporting event," said the Dutchman, when asked to evaluate the return of the sport to Vegas after a 41-year absence.

"Not a lot of emotions to be honest. I mean I don't like... I just want to always focus on the performance side of things, I don't like all the things around it anyway," he said.

"I know of course there are some places that you know (it is) part of it, but let's say it's not my interest," he added.

Asked for his opinion on the street track, which will take the drivers down the famous Vegas 'strip', Verstappen was blunt.

"Yeah, not very interesting...it's just not many corners to be honest," he said.

After taking part in the opening ceremony, which featured a drone show and music, the 26-year-old said he wouldn't be attending Wednesday night's party.

When he was asked if he would at least be looking forward to Sunday's race, Verstappen's lack of enthusiasm was again evident.

"No. No, but I'm looking forward to trying to do the best I can, but I'm not looking forward to this," he said, pointing to the hospitality areas above the paddock.

Verstappen said he hadn't talked to the F1 organizers about his views but said he doubted his views would have an impact on them.

"I don't know. I guess they still make money if I like it or not, so it's not up to me. But I'm also not going to fake it," he said.

"I just always voice my opinion in positive things and negative things, and that's just how I am. Some people like a show a bit more, I don't like it at all," he said.

"I grew up just looking at the performance side of things, and that's how I see it as well. So for me, I like to be in Vegas, but not so much for racing," he added.

But Verstappen said that he did understand that F1's owners Liberty Media, who are also promoters of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, had their own commercial interests.

"I fully understand and you know, you can look at it two ways - business side or sports side. So, I, of course, understand their side of it as well," he said.

"But I'm just voicing my opinion on the performance side of things," he said.

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Fickle Winds Continue to Affect Olympic Sailing Medal Races

 Fickle winds continued to affect the first medal races for sailing at the Paris Olympics Friday (The AP)
 Fickle winds continued to affect the first medal races for sailing at the Paris Olympics Friday (The AP)
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Fickle Winds Continue to Affect Olympic Sailing Medal Races

 Fickle winds continued to affect the first medal races for sailing at the Paris Olympics Friday (The AP)
 Fickle winds continued to affect the first medal races for sailing at the Paris Olympics Friday (The AP)

Fickle winds continued to affect the first medal races for sailing at the Paris Olympics Friday, as officials hoped to squeeze four of them between the calm and hot morning and the strong thunderstorm expected to roll in in the late afternoon.

The women's skiffs started right after noon Friday, to the cheering of fans that waited for hours the day before under the punishing sun.

The Netherlands’ Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz won the gold medal with Sweden’s Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler coming in second. Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon of France finished third, The AP reported.

Both the men’s and women’s skiffs, known as 49erFX — powerful, bird-like two-person boats — were originally scheduled for Thursday but postponed due to a lack of wind.

Picon’s partner, Jean-Emmanuel Mestre, with their daughter Lou, 7, perched on his shoulders said the stress was palpable but their first goal was to support the athletes.

“We try to maintain our routine,” said Mestre. “It’s the same for everyone.”

The medal race for the men’s skiffs started twice Thursday in Marseille before being abandoned after the light wind died, leaving athletes broiling in the heat on the water in the interval for several hours.

“It was an emotional roller coaster,” said Isaac McHardie of New Zealand, which was third entering the medal race for the men’s skiffs called 49ers.

After the skiffs, the agenda Friday has the windsurfing men’s and women’s medal races. If they can’t be run, they might be pushed back another day.

Also starting on Friday was a new sailing event, the mixed-gender dinghy called 470 — introduced this year to even out medal opportunities between men and women for the first time. And the men's and women's dinghies should be continuing their races, too, making for quite a crowd in Marseille's beautiful, monument-fringed bay.

Officials were working on alternative plans for the medal races if the weather doesn’t collaborate, as it hasn’t since the sailing competition started Sunday. Races have been routinely delayed, and a windsurfing “marathon” Wednesday was also abandoned more than an hour into it.

In sailing, points are accumulated over multiple regattas over multiple days, with the medal races usually counting for double points. But largely because of the fickle conditions, nobody in the skiffs has yet a clear grasp of the podium.

The men’s team from Spain and the women’s team from France were in the lead going into the medal races after 12 regattas.

In windsurfing, where the rules are a bit different, two athletes have made it far enough into the rankings to be guaranteed a medal — Emma Wilson of Britain and Grae Morris of Austrialia. Everyone else is still in the cliffhanger.

The uncertainty makes the delays and abandoned races particularly painful, and the heat also takes a physical toll.

On Thursday, the skiffs sat on the water in their protective gear under a punishing sun with temperatures pushing 35 degrees Celsius (low 90s), with some athletes running low on water and ice as they waited. Temperatures were expected to soar even higher on Friday.

For athletes, the biggest challenge was to be both switched on for the peak moment of their career — and relaxed enough not to waste physical and mental energy on what they can't control.

“It's part of sailing," Duetz said Thursday after the women waited about an hour in their skiffs but their race never started.

The fans were trying to take it in stride too, welcoming the skiffs back with cheers and waving flags Thursday evening after sweltering on a shadeless breakwater most of the afternoon. Among them were the families of France’s Sarah Steyaert and Charline Picon, who were first on the women’s start list.

“So exciting and so nervous and so anxious,” is how Steyaert’s father, Patrick Steyaert, summed up the wait, while Sarah’s 5-year-old daughter threw herself into her mother’s arms, weeping.