Perhaps it’s more than a little apt that with the driver and constructors' world championships decided, Formula One arrives in Mexico just ahead of the Day of the Dead.
For Mexicans it is more than just an Aztec halloween. With skeletal costumes and faces painted as lurid hollow skulls it is when the dead come to life and party with the living. Or so it goes.
Talking of which, we come to Sergio Perez.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull have their championships but what of him? Could his compensation come in the way of being the first Mexican since F1 came to town in 1963 to win his home race?
It was fairly lawless city when I was first there in the 1980s. There was a camel standing on a traffic island advertising cigarettes, I witnessed an armed robbery, was extorted of £50 by a motorcycle cop and narrowly escaped death when an F1 car crashed close to where I was standing on the pit wall.
It’s different now but will things be civilised enough for the new double champion to lend Perez a helping hand into history?
He is owed a favour having done his bit in holding up Verstappen’s bitter rival heroically here in Abu Dhabi as the Dutchman took his first world title.
Red Bull, too, know even in their best years they have never had 1-2 in the drivers' championship but now have a golden opportunity.
Verstappen’s willingness to play his part may be coloured by the desire to land a 14th victory which would make this the most dominant season in F1 history.
But then there is Brazil and Abu Dhabi to come.
Red Bull have every reason to make hay while the sun shines, given their cost cap punishment is due any day now. Many believe that if it does anything other than leave them as walking dead in next year’s title race, the financial regulations will have been a failure.
For that reason, perhaps, as well as others that offer hope of a real title tilt next year the seven-time champion refuses to accept the Age of Hamilton is over and the Verstappen Era under way.
“It’s too early to say. If we get into next year and they’re dominating again then yes,” Hamilton admitted.
Under the new sliding scale Mercedes, if third, will have 14 per cent more tunnel time than Red Bull in 2023.
Add a cost cap penalty and they have every reason to believe they will be key contenders with Ferrari.
Maranello’s alarming fall off in form since the summer break is proof enough they have long since turned their attention to the future.
Ed Sheeran, Brad Pitt and other celebrities at US Grand Prix - in pictures
Verstappen notched up just eight more laps in the lead than Charles Leclerc in the first half of the year (298/290) although his win ratio was eight to three.
Since August, though, he has won five out of the six GPs and led for nine times the distance (190/20).
The demise of Maranello as a real front-runner since the break has been so extreme even Hamilton, labouring in a hated car, has more lead laps (23/20).
Renewed optimism flows through Mercedes after almost winning on Sunday with their updated car but they have admitted its fundamental "architecture" will change for 2023.
And last weekend demonstrated the scale of the mountain faced by one and all.
It looked as though Hamilton was finally in with a chance when he closed within 0.6s of leader Verstappen on lap 21. In fact, the Dutchman was sandbagging.
Whether the team didn’t want to show their ultimate speed for political reasons (impending fine) or it was Verstappen’s own tactic remains unknown.
But when his pit stop went wrong, the world champion had to show his hand and reveal the real pace he was concealing if he wanted to win.
And it was considerable even allowing for different tyres.
Verstappen had to make up nine seconds lost in the stop, overtake Leclerc and then haul in six seconds to a seven-time champion with the bit between his teeth and desperate not to end a season winless for the first time in his career.
He did it easily, going from 6.4s behind on lap 36 to five seconds ahead when the flag fell 20 laps later.
That Hamilton and Verstappen now share the record for most 1-2s (32) is cold comfort to the Briton on days like this.
The Red Bull wasn’t just in another league to the rest it was in another country.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
Results
2pm: Al Sahel Contracting Company – Maiden (PA) Dh50,000 (Dirt) 1,200m; Winner: AF Mutakafel, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
2.30pm: Dubai Real Estate Centre – Maiden (TB) Dh60,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: El Baareq, Antonio Fresu, Rashed Bouresly
3pm: Shadwell – Rated Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,950m; Winner: Lost Eden, Andrea Atzeni, Doug Watson
3.30pm: Keeneland – Handicap (TB) Dh84,000 (D) 1,000m; Winner: Alkaraama, Dane O’Neill, Musabah Al Muhairi
4pm: Keeneland – Handicap (TB) Dh76,000 (D) 1,800m; Winner: Lady Snazz, Saif Al Balushi, Bhupat Seemar
4.30pm: Hive – Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Down On Da Bayou, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
5pm: Dubai Real Estate Centre – (TB) Handicap Dh64,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Lahmoom, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
Remaining fixtures
Third-place-play-off: Portugal v Mexico, 4pm on Sunday
Final: Chile v Germany, 10pm on Sunday
Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Pakhtoons 137-6 (10 ov)
Fletcher 68 not out; Cutting 2-14
Sindhis 129-8 (10 ov)
Perera 47; Sohail 2-18
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness'
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams
Rating: 3/5
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