Our correspondent is about to begin to guide you through today's sprint race (14:00 GMT) and qualifying (6pm).
The formation lap is underway.
We have 19 laps of the longest circuit in Formula One, David Croft informs us.
The last moments is underway.
An advantage in Max Verstappen's favour: his fellow driver Yuki Tsunoda is in front of him by one place. It's improbable to interfere with the team's lead driver.
Sky speaking with Sky now: Gary Neville is at the Mercedes team.
The analyst is looking forward to 2026, speaking with the engineer about his promotion to Aston Martin lead role.
Just sixteen vehicles on the grid. This followed another bad qualifying for Lewis Hamilton: after coming twentieth and final in Las Vegas, leading to an eighth position in the grand prix, he failed to make it out of Q1 again on the previous day. Ferrari have consequently made changes to his car configuration and so he begins from the starting area.
Aston Martin's Lance Stroll and the Alpine duo of Gasly and Colapinto are all starting from the same position.
"We take the learning for the next day," states Isack Hadjar, starting eleventh. Expect a lot of that.
It's not all about the individual championship: The team have dominated the team championship but Mercedes, with a 40-point lead over Red Bull, are aiming to secure the runner-up position this weekend. George Russell can help them achieve that from the front row, and Kimi Antonelli will start just behind Verstappen.
Oscar Piastri was victorious then – as he did the previous season, as well. McLaren's Australian is going for a hat-trick.
Alright, just over 20 minutes to go until the sprint race begins. Barring disaster, it's greatest value is as a preview of what is to come, rather than highly important in its own right, with just eight championship points awarded to the victor. However, second place in this race was sufficient for the driver to claim the title two years ago.
The driver claimed F1 world title following his teammate's accident of the short race.
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Matthew Dean
Matthew Dean
Matthew Dean