Jules Bianchi's accident in Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix has prompted questions over whether the Formula One race should have been started earlier to beat deteriorating weather conditions.
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has warned against possible technical 'trickery' as Formula One enters a new and uncertain era.
Hamilton said he had not been feeling well on Thursday and Friday, when he was also up until midnight working with his engineers.
Verstappen leads seven times world champion Hamilton by six points with six races remaining and the pole at Austin's Circuit of the Americas was the ninth of the season for the Dutch 24-year-old -- and eighth in the last 11 races.
Lewis Hamilton tightened his grip on securing a fifth Formula One world title by coming from nowhere to claim a stunning pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix in his Mercedes on Saturday.
The German, whose last victory was in Belgium in August 2018, took the chequered flag 2.641 seconds ahead of Monegasque team mate Charles Leclerc, who had started on pole position for the third race in a row.
Hamilton has won the last three races, out of four so far in this COVID-19 affected season, and will start as favourite again.
Lewis Hamilton is hoping rain will come to the rescue as a Hockenheim heatwave threatens to dash Mercedes's hopes of a home German Grand Prix win on Sunday.
Max Verstappen lapped with a best time of one minute 27.422 seconds.
Verstappen took a grid penalty at the previous race in Russia and finished second after starting at the back of the field, his progress helped after late rain caused problems for others.
Seven drivers, including Charles Leclerc, remained standing last weekend.
Rediff.com recaptures these and other exciting sporting moments from the week gone by....
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the French Grand Prix on Saturday with Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas alongside him on the front row.
World champion Hamilton stormed to pole with a record lap of one minute 21.164 seconds at Albert Park, with a gap of more than six-tenths of a second to the second placed Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.
Six times Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and MotoGP great Valentino Rossi are preparing for a ride swap in Spain on Monday, with the Briton "super excited" at the prospect.
Formula One is changing its scoring system to award a point to the driver who sets the fastest race lap, starting from this weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Flavio Briatore will leave Formula One in two years, the Renault team boss said on Saturday. Briatore also hailed Formula One's agreement to cut costs during the global financial crisis.
Lewis Hamilton pulverised the track record to claim pole position on Saturday ahead of a US Grand Prix that could secure the Mercedes driver's fourth Formula One world championship.
Champions Mercedes are chasing a sixth successive double, and Lewis Hamilton his sixth drivers' title, but the task looks tougher than ever.
Perez, who vaulted to fourth in the overall standings after Sunday's race, is the first Mexican driver to win a race since Pedro Rodriguez took victory in the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton, eight points behind Vettel after 10 races, qualified 14th.
Hamilton, who had also topped Saturday morning's final practice session, never look like being challenged throughout the qualifying hour.
The four-time world champion's fifth win of the season for Mercedes left him on 213 points to 189 for Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who finished second, and relishing the prospect of a stress-free family holiday.
While Formula One rivals compete in virtual grands prix and various esports series during the coronavirus lockdown, six-times World champion Lewis Hamilton has been busy racing against himself. The Briton has been a keen gamer since boyhood and for some years a brand ambassador for the Gran Turismo franchise on Sony's PlayStation.
The Mercedes driver was fastest in every phase of qualifying to take pole with a time of one minute 42.553 seconds, a track record.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel refused to blame his team for a wrong strategy call after the four time World Champion missed out on an elusive first win of the Formula One season in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix.
The Formula One season winds up in Abu Dhabi on Sunday with both titles won, Lewis Hamilton aiming to close the year on a winning note and big money still at stake for those further down the paddock pecking order.
Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton won the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix for Mercedes on Sunday to cut Max Verstappen's overall Formula One lead to eight points with two races remaining.
The Mercedes driver, who fought back from last to second after being sent spinning at the third corner by Ferrari's Finn, had spoken immediately after the race of the Italian team's 'interesting tactics'.
Hamilton has already won the title, his record-equalling seventh, but the Briton is isolating after testing positive for COVID-19.
The France-Austria-Britain sequence of races poses a fresh logistical challenge for teams hitherto committed only to back-to-back weekends, with the 21-round season hurrying to the halfway point.
Formula One said a tribute was in the works, with details to be confirmed. A minute's silence is likely before the race.
Formula One scrapped all four of this season's races in the Americas due to the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday and added three European rounds, including old favourites Imola and the Nuerburgring, to the calendar. While previously scheduled Grands Prix in Canada, Texas, Mexico and Brazil were cancelled, Formula One said in a statement that Portugal's Portimao will host a race for the first time.
Lauda won two world championships in 1975 and 1977 with Ferrari and a third in 1984 with McLaren. His rivalry with British driver James Hunt, the 1976 champion for McLaren, was intense and became the subject of the acclaimed 2013 film "Rush".
Formula One legend Michael Schumacher, who is still recovering from his 2013 skiing crash, is on the way to positive recovery.
Lewis Hamilton took a big step towards clinching his fifth Formula One title after putting his Mercedes on pole position at the U.S. Grand Prix on Saturday with Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel starting fifth.
Lewis Hamilton did 94 laps of Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on the soft C2 compound in a sunny afternoon session
Hamilton said he only realised the significance of what he had done when he came into the pitlane after taking the chequered flag.
A Ferrari victory was the shot in the arm that Formula One needed.
Next season, if Ferrari can carry their gathering momentum into 2020, could even see Leclerc challenging for the championship after losing out to Hamilton's Mercedes outfit this year.
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