Max Verstappen has Michael Schumacher repeat to avoid vs Lewis Hamilton ahead of Saudi GP

Lewis Hamilton goes undercover to inspire school children

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Max Verstappen might fear repeating history that would see his Formula 1 Drivers’ World Championship hopes sink in the next fortnight. Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton have engaged in one of the most dramatic world title fights in F1 history this season, and the climax is closing in.

The drivers are 20 races down in the 2021 F1 campaign, and it is still unclear who will be crowned champion with just two to go.

Ahead of this weekend’s inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Verstappen leads Hamilton by just eight points after the latter triumphed in the last two outings in Brazil and Qatar.

And the Dutchman will be concerned by an interesting fact from when the title fight has still been live with two races remaining.

From 1990 to 2020, the world champion hasn’t been decided with two races to spare on 17 different occasions.

The driver leading the standings at that point – Verstappen in this instance – has only gone on to top to drivers’ standings three times (18 per cent).

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Joint-record world title winner Michael Schumacher was on the wrong end of the scenario in 2006, when he lost out to Fernando Alonso.

The German legend was level on points with Alonso before the final two races but led the standings on countback.

However, he suffered a DNF as Alonso won in Japan before a fourth-place finish in Brazil handed the title to the Spaniard.

Verstappen will be desperate to avoid becoming the 15th of 18 championship leaders in that period to collapse late, especially after an emotional battle with Hamilton this year.

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The 24-year-old will be feeling the pressure heading into the final two races of the season and has admitted he wishes the gap to Hamilton was bigger.

“I would of course have liked to make it a bigger gap. But when you don’t have the pace, it’s impossible to do that,” Verstappen explained.

“So we’ll just try to be better, and come back strong, especially in Saudi on the street track, and then yeah, we’ll see in Abu Dhabi.”

But in the opposite corner, after clinching his second successive win in Qatar earlier this month, Hamilton claimed he’s ‘loving’ the battle to retain his world title.

“I’m loving it. I love the close battle, and the pressure and the demands it puts on you and the whole team,” Hamilton explained.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, but these next two races need even better performance. We’ll be bringing out the triple-A game for those ones.

“It’s amazing to be able to close back so many points in these last two races. It has been important.

“They are obviously still very fast and [in the race in Qatar] both their cars were getting past everyone quite easily. So, we’ve still got our work cut out.”

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