The race is on, and Formula One's epic world championship battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton will be decided in a six-race run-in over the next eight weeks.

But with just six points separating them, who is the favourite, and what will be the key factors that decide the destiny of the title fight that will be

fought out in the USA, Mexico, Brazil, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi?

I'm Ed Stur and joining me to run the rule over this epic battle are Gary Anderson and Mark Hughes.

Well, Mark, how are you doing? Enjoying this brief moment of respite before it all gets going with this frenetic finale?

Yeah, a little bit of respite.

Quite a lot of form-filling, as I'm sure you know, to get into America for Austin

and all the extra COVID preparations for that.

But yeah, it's an epic fight we've got coming up in eight weeks, six races and eight weeks.

So, yeah, it's going to be sort of quick fire, but dramatic, I'm sure.

As long as it's not an epic fight with US immigration,

which sometimes it can be to get into the country for us.

And Gary, no such dramas for you with battling to get into the USA.

But it's just great, isn't it?

We've got just so much to look forward to in these final races.

I'm just hoping it does go down to that last lap of the last race.

Yeah, so do I. I mean, I hope it goes down to a good on-track battle to the last lap of the last race because that's really what we all want to see. And I can sit in the pleasure of my settee here in the living room and watch it and criticize whatever's going on because that's always easier to do from home. But yeah, I mean, I hope it doesn't turn out to be, you know, the last few races like a Silverstone episode or a Monza episode. I hope it's an on-track battle. And I genuinely hope that Bottas and Perez and maybe a few others actually join in that battle. So it's not just a two-horse race. you know we'd actually see a bit of skull dougarig in honesty who can get the most out of it and who can take most points from other people as well. So it would be interesting to see because that becomes a lot more team tactics whenever there's more drivers involved in it. But yeah, I think it's going to be, as Mark says, six races in the eight weeks, it's going to be a bit of a slog.

Yeah, very much.

So especially with that triple header with the geographically coherent Mexico, Brazil, Qatar trip, which is an interesting one. I'm looking forward to doing those three. I booked all my travel. Not quite as complicated as it might have been, but still not the ideal. But let's get into it. What we're going to do is break the title fight down into its component part.

So we're going to start off looking at the drivers, Mark. So for Stappen's

six points ahead, Hamilton's the one with the experience of title fights. Who would you say has done the

best job so far of those two? And who would you expect to thrive best in the intensity of this running?

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