Max Verstappen has admitted he sometimes wonders whether the rigours of modern Formula 1 are worth it despite cruising towards a dominant third championship.
Verstappen is in his ninth F1 campaign despite being just 25 years old and has repeatedly suggested that he has no intention of racing deep into his 30s.
His current contract, signed months after sealing his first title in 2021, will take him through to the end of 2038, just after his 31st birthday.
Red Bull Racing is a comfortable long-term home, having built itself around him, but Verstappen has become increasingly vocal about his distaste for the sport’s evolution in recent years as it attempts to reach new audiences.
The sprint weekend format has particularly irked him, and earlier this season he said any more changes to the sport’s core principles would see him not “be around for too long”.
The reigning champion has criticised the sport for picking gimmicks over substantive changes, saying instead the focus should be on closing the field rather than tweaking the format.
Expanding on his thoughts with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Verstappen said he didn’t think the sport’s most recent adjustments were beneficial.
“I am concerned about the sport that I have always loved,” he said. “I still like it, but only to a certain extent.
“It’s not that I’m completely against change, as is sometimes said. But they must be changes that benefit Formula 1.
“Why do you have to change certain things when things are going well? I think a traditional qualifying session is well set up in that format. It shouldn’t just be about money.”
Verstappen has also taken issue with the additional workload being placed on the drivers, particularly with the expansion of the schedule to a record-breaking 24 races next season.
While the races themselves aren’t the problem, the effort required with each new round is growing exponentially as the sport booms in popularity.
“[The calendar is] not the biggest problem,” he explained. “I’m more concerned about the extra stuff I have to do.
“For example, I spend more than a month a year on marketing. At a certain point you don’t feel like it anymore.
“In the end it’s not about [money]. People may think, ‘He earns a lot of money, what is that guy complaining about?’. “It’s about wellbeing — how you experience things, not how much you earn.
“Sometimes I think I have to do too many things and not do [other things I enjoy]. Then I sometimes think, ‘Is this still worth it?’.”
Despite his misgivings, there would appear to be little chance of Verstappen hanging up his helmet ahead of time.
The Dutchman is in total control of this year’s title race with a 125-point gap to teammate Sergio Pérez and a 165-point buffer to the next-best non-Red Bull Racing driver, Fernando Alonso.
Red Bull Racing’s advantage is significant, with more than double the points of next-best team Mercedes, and is unlikely to be caught before the end of the season.
There are concerns the team has done such a good job in this generation of rules that it will be unreachable before the regulations change again in 2026.
A new power unit will also be introduced that year, including Red Bull’s first in-house project.
Assuming the team remains dominant until then, Verstappen could be a five-time champion by the time 2026 rolls around, and some have speculated that a dip in the team’s form could persuade him to call it a day.
But the Dutchman said only a calamitous performance downturn would have him considering an early walkout.
“It would have to be very bad and dramatic, I think,” he said. “I don’t expect a team to be able to fall back that far, with all those good people we have around with us.
“It can always be the case in this sport that you are not doing well as a team. Then it’s about what the outlook is and what the perspective is. I don’t see myself touring around in the midfield for three years. Then I would rather stay at home or do something else.
“But again, I don’t see that happening.”
