Coming into the weekend Mercedes were always the favourite to win the debut Qatar GP boasting some newly-found pace over the past couple of weeks. It was all damage limitation for Red Bull and Verstappen after he received the five place grid penalty for ignoring the yellow flags at qualifying yesterday.

Hamilton got off to a roaring start as the lights went off and took up quite a lead heading into the first corner. Like Hamilton, Verstappen too had a very good start shrugging off his penalty disappointment by jumping into P4 from P7. As the podium featured the two protagonists for the title it also featured F1 legend Fernando Alonso who had an impeccable race himself, not putting even a foot wrong, achieving his first F1 podium since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix, fending off late pressure from Sergio Perez as he was getting closer lap by lap.

Perez’s fourth place was a decent recovery considering he’d started P11, while he finished ahead of the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, with Lance Stroll taking P6 for Aston Martin.

The Ferrari pair of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were P7 and P8. Lando Norris took P9 after a late stop for the McLaren driver, as Sebastian Vettel took the final points-paying position for P10 – with Pierre Gasly failing to make a two-stop strategy work, dropping from P2 on the grid to P11, allowing Alpine to move clear of Alpha Tauri in P5 in the standings.

Meanwhile, it was a day to forget for Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, who took his own grid drop, dropping from P3 to P6, before falling to 11th at the start and then suffering mid-race tyre issues – as did Williams’ George Russell and Nicholas Latifi – before Mercedes retired him.

So, with just two races to go now, it’s Hamilton within touching distance of Verstappen in the drivers’ fight. A better end to the season couldn’t have been written. Bring on Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.