Abu Dhabi: Prepare for ‘a battle royal’ of Alain Prost-Ayrton Senna proportions when Lewis Hamilton faces Nico Rosberg in Sunday’s spine-tingling title finale at the Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

That’s the message from former F1 driver Johnny Herbert, who summed up the huge excitement and intrigue enveloping the Mercedes pair’s eagerly anticipated showdown at Yas Marina Circuit.

The duo’s dominance of the F1 season – they have won 15 of the 18 grands prix (Hamilton with 10 wins and Rosberg five) - and intense battles have evoked memories of Prost and Senna’s infamous clashes on and off the track in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Herbert, an F1 pundit for Britain’s Sky Sports Television, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview on Saturday: “Is this up there with Prost and Senna? It is. They were teammates back then like Hamilton and Rosberg.

“I think it will be a battle royal [on Sunday].”

Could we expect similarly decisive collisions to those between Prost and Senna at the 1989 and 1990 title finales, given that Rosberg trails his rival by 17 points?

“I don’t think we’re going to have that similar situation,” Herbert said. “It has to be Nico to do it and he has to win. Nico to do it by ramming him [Hamilton] up the inside, leaving his suspension broken without damaging his car? No, it’s a different scenario from that [Prost and Senna’s collisions].”

Herbert, who won three Grands Prix between 1989 and 2000, believes Hamilton has the ‘strength’ to claim the title.

But he said the controversial double-points system, with 50 points as opposed to the usual 25 on offer for the winner for the first time at the final grand prix of the season, had added an extra imponderable.

The 50-year-old Englishman said: “I think with this double-points thing it does make a difference over the norm. Without it, Lewis would be that much closer to sealing it [the title] but now he’s got to finish second.

Herbert’s Sky TV colleague, the 1996 Formula One world champion Damon Hill, agreed that Hamilton and Rosberg’s wheel-to-wheel warfare had been ‘great’ for the sport.

“Yes, it’s up there with finales of the past,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the double points, it would still be a title showdown race.”

Herbert, who was also a teammate of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher at Benetton said he was “very sad” to hear of Schumacher’s plight

“It just proves how fragile life is unfortunately,” said Herbert, who finished fourth in the F1 championship behind Schumacher in 1995. It’s very sad because his worst injury was when he broke his leg at [the 1999 British Grand Prix] at Silverstone. He dominated with seven world championships and left a great legacy when he left F1 and was carrying on with his life. It’s a long road ahead for him, like his family keep saying.”