Max Verstappen admitted he had "a lot of fun" racing at the Las Vegas Grand Prix despite spending most of his weekend panning the event.

Many Formula 1 stars were happy to soak up the Sin City atmosphere, but Verstappen clearly hated everything about it. He began by slamming the event as "99 percent show and one percent sport" after gritting his teeth through an opening ceremony earlier in the week.

He later took aim at the track by telling reporters he did not like it at all. And, after qualifying, the Red Bull racer issued his most scathing review of all when he quipped: "Monaco is Champions League... this is National League."

Regardless of his ill-feeling about Las Vegas, he went on to win the race. And he seemed to be feeling a lot better about the whole event after recording that 53rd career victory - only Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher have more now in the sport's history.

He said: "You could clearly see with the DRS around here it was very powerful. So, even when you would take the lead, if the guy behind would stay in the DRS, he would still have an opportunity to come back at you, which I think created quite a lot of good racing here today. So it was definitely a lot of fun."

Speaking specifically about the track itself, Verstappen went on to claim that he knew the racing was going to be fun all along. "Well, I always expected it to be a good race today," he added.

"Long straights, low speed corners, you don't lose a lot of downforce. That's never been my issue. Today was fun. That's the only thing I want to say about it. Today was fun, I hope everyone enjoyed it. I think the DRS effect was strong but good. It made it for fun racing out there."