Nico Rosberg strengthened his position at the top of the Driver’s Championship with another dominant victory at Suzuka, his lead is now 33 points with four races left – he can secure the title without winning another race this season if needed. Mercedes sealed their third consecutive Constructors’ Championship at the race with Lewis Hamilton’s third place finish.
Rosberg was never threatened for the lead, even though Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was a little under 5 seconds behind at the finish. Lewis Hamilton had a sniff of that second place, recovering from another poor start. Hamilton needed a decent points haul after his retirement in Malaysia from the lead. He crawled off the line and found himself down in eighth place by the first corner. It feels like he has endured poor start after poor start but, as the chart below shows, he has generally made his lost positions back up again – he has only lost 9 places after lap one so far this season.
He created some excitement in a relatively dull race, especially after the first pit stops, making many passes to make up positions. That second place of Verstappen’s ultimately proved too much to gain, though, as he attempted to pass the Dutch driver at the final chicane on the penultimate lap.
Back markers and blue flags were another talking point with both Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen discussing them over the radio throughout the race. Despite this, Vettel came fourth with Raikkonen fifth.
The Malaysian winner, Daniel Ricciardo, was sixth in his Red Bull. Force India pulled further ahead of Williams in their private battle for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg finishing seventh and eighth ahead of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas in ninth and tenth.
The next four races could be very tense, but Rosberg is looking likely to mirror Damon Hill’s achievement of twenty years ago and become the next driver to win the championship who is the son of a Formula One champion.