Lewis Hamilton still trails Max Verstappen in the championship ahead of the double-header season finale, but his run of sparkling form in the last two rounds makes him difficult to resist as the title favourite.

Lewis Hamilton wins easily in the first-ever Qatar Grand Prix to slice Max Verstappen lead to just eight points with two races to go. Featuring ESPN’s Nate Saunders.

Four-time Formula 1 world champion and current Alpine F1 non-executive director Alain Prost talk about Alpine’s race-winning 2021 season, Oscar Piastri’s role as Alpine’s test driver next year, Daniel Ricciardo’s time with the team under the Renault name and the Max Verstappen vs Lewis Hamilton championship fight, while we wrap up Sunday’s inaugural Qatar Grand Prix.

Christian Horner gets told off for his spam text messages promising fast rail from Melbourne to Sydney, we get a prediction right for probably the first time this season. And who would be the first modern F1 driver to grow a mullet?

Formula 1 expert Michael Lamonato joined the show to recap the latest round in Qatar, which saw Lewis Hamilton close in on Max Verstappen’s championship lead.

Sports Drive, 15 November — Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Michael Lamonato caught up with Matt Grubelich on Sports Drive to review all the action from the Qatar Grand Prix this morning.

Lewis Hamilton made victory look easy in Qatar, blowing away title rival Max Verstappen and reducing his championship deficit to just eight points.

Lewis Hamilton has cruised to a crucial victory at the Qatar Grand Prix to slice his title deficit to Max Verstappen down to just eight points with two races still to run.

Lewis Hamilton trails Max Verstappen by just eight points in the championships standings after an easy victory over Max Verstappen at the first Qatar Grand Prix.

The Briton got the perfect start to assert control over the race, but Verstappen was determined not to be left languishing in the midfield, having started the race seventh following a penalty for ignoring yellow flags in qualifying. A perfect launch on the clean side of the track lifted him three places on the first lap, and passes on Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso had him back in second by lap five.

Four seconds split the title protagonists, and Verstappen started to light up the timing board, but the visage of competitiveness was short lived. Hamilton put his foot down just as the gap began to shrink, and a little more than 10 laps later the margin blew out to 10s.

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Lewis Hamilton holds all the cards in Formula 1’s first-ever Qatar Grand Prix, and with car pace and strategy on his side, he’s well placed to half his championship deficit to Max Verstappen.

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton ended practice at the Qatar Grand Prix comfortably ahead of the pack after a second successive day of rear wing problems for Red Bull Racing.

Bottas was quicker than Hamilton around the new-to-F1 Losail International Circuit for the third straight session, topping the final practice hour by 0.078s. Despite FP3 taking place in unrepresentatively warm daytime conditions in comparison to qualifying or the race, the Finn lowered the track record by another 0.8s, down to 1m22.573s.

Red Bull had no answer to the Mercedes pace in the final practice hour, with Max Verstappen 0.341s off the pace in third and teammate Sergio Perez another 0.2 further back in fifth.

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Lewis Hamilton has taken the season’s most dominant pole position to beat title rival Max Verstappen to the front row of the grid under lights at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix to take pole position ahead of title leader Max Verstappen.

The Briton never looked threatened through the grid-setting session, and so strong was his form that both laps set in the pole shootout were good enough to ensure his supremacy over Red Bull Racing’s team leader at the head of the grid.

But his second lap will have been a heavy blow to Red Bull Racing, his 1m20.827 besting the Dutchman by 0.455s. And with Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas third on the grid but Sergio Perez floundering in 11th in the second Red Bull, Hamilton is well placed to convert pole to victory and make further inroads on his points deficit.

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Valtteri Bottas has topped the crucial second practice session at the Qatar Grand Prix after Red Bull Racing hit rear wing trouble.

With the sun down, lights on and track temperatures some 20 degrees F cooler, conditions representative of qualifying and the race, Bottas lowered the benchmark set in the afternoon session by almost 0.6s with a time of 1m23.148s. It was the Finn’s second hot lap on the same set of soft tires, having lost an almost identical time to track limits earlier in the session.

Pierre Gasly impressed with second in the order for the second straight session, the AlphaTauri driver just 0.209s shy of Bottas’s best.

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Max Verstappen led the way in Formula 1’s arrival at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit, while Lewis Hamilton endured trouble with a damaged car and a lack of power.

The title leader looked comfortable around the sandy track on his way to the fastest time, a 1m23.723s, to beat AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly by 0.437s, the Frenchman rising through the order with a late lap on softs.

Mercedes followed in third and fourth, with Valtteri Bottas 0.471s adrift and Lewis Hamilton a further 0.351s off the pace.

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