Hamilton's win takes F1 season to final showdown

Jeddah: The increasingly tense Formula One title fight between defending champion Lewis Hamilton and his formidable challenger, Max Verstappen, will head to the last race of the season with the fierce rivals level on points.

Next weekend's Abu Dhabi showdown will see Hamilton crowned for a record eighth time or Verstappen win his first title.

Hamilton's nail-biting win at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday was his third straight to pull him level with Verstappen on 369.5 points. The British veteran is within touching distance of title No. 8 to move one ahead of Michael Schumacher and stand alone among F1 greats. Verstappen still leads by a hair's breadth, only because he has more wins: 9-8.

"Of course it's exciting," said Verstappen, who won last year in Abu Dhabi. "We're starting again like we started the season.

Hamilton's win in the heat and humidity of Jeddah saw him pass Verstappen with six laps remaining of a chaotic race, as the pair tangled again this season following high-octane crashes at the British GP and the Italian GP.

"It was clear that others around were willing to take it to all sorts of levels to overtake, Hamilton said after the race, with Verstappen sat right next to him. We've seen multiple incidents this year. Hamilton is in no mood to back down with the finish in sight, but Verstappen has drawn out the street fighter in him. The race on the street circuit under the lights on the 30-kilometer (18.6-mile) coastal resort area in Jeddah will go down as one of the more memorable events of the season if not the last several years.