But there were no bold statements on race day as he struggled to take a point and his team mate Charles Leclerc laboured to an eighth-place finish.
Lando Norris won the Austrian Grand Prix and revived his Formula One title bid after fending off championship-leading McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri under race-long pressure on Sunday.
World champion Max Verstappen put Red Bull on pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in dramatic style on Saturday.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri seized the first proper pole position of his Formula One career at the Chinese Grand Prix on Saturday with the fastest lap yet around the Shanghai International Circuit.
Australian Oscar Piastri won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday to take the lead in the Formula One world championship
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris topped the times for McLaren as four red flags, two caused by trackside grass fires, wreaked havoc with the second practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix on Friday.
World champion Max Verstappen took pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix on Saturday, stunning the McLarens with a late flying lap.
Lando Norris lucked in to win a rain-hit and crash-strewn Miami Grand Prix sprint race in a McLaren one-two on Saturday.
Verstappen, who had started alongside Norris on the front row, was leading by lap three and could then build a buffer and take control.
Norris's teammate Oscar Piastri, who spun off and finished ninth in his home race last Sunday after starting on the front row and challenging for the lead, has another good chance to rev up his season.
Red Bull's triple world champion Max Verstappen followed up a Saturday sprint win with a statement pole position for Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix, with McLaren's Lando Norris again alongside on the front row.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri celebrated pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix, his 50th Formula One race, while dejected championship-leading teammate Lando Norris qualified sixth and said he had been "clueless on track".
Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and sent McLaren top of the constructors' standings in a race that finished with a virtual safety car after a penultimate lap collision between Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Red Bull's Sergio Perez.
McLaren's Lando Norris hailed the best qualifying lap of his career after beating F1 leader Max Verstappen to pole position at the US Grand Prix.
Double world champion Max Verstappen ran away with a Saturday sprint race in a Red Bull one-two at the Austrian Grand Prix.
McLaren's Lando Norris took pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix sprint on Friday with Mercedes' George Russell denying the Formula One leaders a front row.
Lewis Hamilton smashed the Shanghai circuit lap record on his way to a stunning first sprint race pole for Ferrari in China on Friday.
Lando Norris won the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday to deliver McLaren's first Formula One constructors' title since 1998
Verstappen crossed the line in his Red Bull for his 64th Grand Prix victory to a huge ovation from the 115,000 crowd some 1.4 seconds ahead of McLaren's championship leader Lando Norris in second place.
Mercedes have called in the police after an anonymous email purporting to be from an insider accused the Formula One team of sabotaging their departing seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton
World champion Max Verstappen took the first pole position of the Formula One season in Bahrain on Friday.
Ferrari's underwhelming pace was a surprise to their rivals and to Hamilton, whose quickest lap in the final qualifying session (Q3) was nearly nine-tenths of a second slower than Norris's.
Lando Norris led a McLaren front row sweep in qualifying for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Saturday
Leclerc was 11 seconds clear with seven laps to go and 8.3 ahead with five remaining as the massed ranks of 'tifosi' willed him on.
Lewis Hamilton raced one last time for Mercedes on Sunday, Formula One's most successful driver and team partnership ending in a cloud of tyre smoke
Verstappen took pole position for the Saudi Arabian Formula One Grand Prix on Friday with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc qualifying alongside on the front row.
Lando Norris put McLaren on pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday
Red Bull's Formula One championship leader Max Verstappen won the Hungarian Grand Prix from 10th on the starting grid on Sunday as Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc suffered another strategy nightmare.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen dealt Lando Norris a shattering blow in their Formula One title battle by winning a wet and chaotic Sao Paulo Grand Prix from 17th on the grid.
McLaren's Lando Norris dominated the Singapore Grand Prix from start to finish on Sunday to take another chunk out of Max Verstappen's Formula One championship lead.
Lando Norris roared to his second successive pole position, and third in four races, in a McLaren front row sweep with team mate Oscar Piastri
McLaren are leading the constructor's championship but are only 29 points ahead of Ferrari, with Leclerc an obvious threat and team mate Carlos Sainz qualifying fifth and Mercedes' George Russell sixth.
Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell retired from ODIs to focus on next year's T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.
McLaren could clinch their first constructors' crown since 1998 on Sunday if they outscore Ferrari by 21 points at the Qatar F1 Grand Prix.
Stephen Graham won two awards at the Emmys, including Best Actor for his role in Netflix's hit drama Adolescence as well as Best Writing alongside co-creator Jack Thorne.
Red Bull have won 20 of the 21 races so far, another F1 record, and Verstappen has won in Abu Dhabi for the past three years. Both titles have already been clinched.
Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton blamed miscommunication for a coming together in Spanish Grand Prix qualifying.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen equalled Ayrton Senna's record of eight pole positions in a row.
Max Verstappen won the Spanish Grand Prix from pole position to stretch his Formula One championship lead to 53 points.
Lewis Hamilton will bring down the curtain on his Mercedes career in Abu Dhabi on Sunday as his past and future Formula One teams, McLaren and Ferrari, fight for a constructors' title to end years of waiting.
