Hamilton dominates Japanese Grand Prix

While Nico Rosberg had the pace on Saturday, it was Lewis Hamilton who took victory during the race. The Brit got the better start off the line and the two went side by side into turn 1. Hamilton had the inside and squeezed his team mate on the exit of turn 2. From there on, it was an easy win.

But Nico Rosberg had to fight a little more. He was passed by Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas after his close racing with Hamilton. Mercedes effectively used the undercut to find a way past both cars, but Vettel was not letting his German compatriot out of sight. It was a game of cat and mouse as they weaved through traffic, but Vettel could not get close enough to mount an attack. He finished 3rd, two seconds behind Rosberg.

Kimi Raikkonen was 4th after a battle with his countryman Valtteri Bottas. The Williams was ahead initially but Raikkonen began to close in on Bottas while he was on the hard tyre during the second stint, which proved to be the preferred compound for the race.

Nico Hulkenberg was 6th after an impressive drive from 13th on the grid, having taken a 3-place grid penalty for a collision with Felipe Massa at the previous race in Singapore.

Lotus managed to get both cars into the points with Romain Grosjean 7th and Pastor Maldonado 8th; a positive result on a difficult weekend for the Enstone team who have been locked out of their hospitality area, and are due in court tomorrow to settle their debt to HMRC.

Nonetheless, the team took full advantage of Toro Rosso’s problems. Max Verstappen was 9th having recovered from 17th on the grid after taking a 3-place grid penalty for parking his car in the dangerous place at the end of Q1 yesterday, having encountered a reliability issue. Despite having to fight other cars, the Dutchman finished ahead of team mate Carlos Sainz in 10th. The Spaniard had a delay in the pits after he hit the bollard on the pit lane entry which damaged his front wing. Without a spare wing prepared, the stop was longer than it needed to be.

Fernando Alonso was 11th after a challenging race in which he had no defence for the McLaren’s lack of straight line speed. He was very vocal on team radio about the state of the Honda power unit, comparing it to a GP2 engine and labelling it “embarrassing”. His team mate Jenson Button was 16th.

Sergio Perez made contact with Sainz into turn 1 which saw him run into the gravel and receive a puncture. On his recovery drive, he was in a fight with Marcus Ericsson in the latter stages of the race and finished 12th.

Red Bull will be disappointed as they were set for a competitive weekend. A dramatic crash for Daniil Kvyat saw his Red Bull being totally rebuilt before the race, resulting in the Russian having to start from the pit lane. He recovered to 13th.

His team mate Daniel Ricciardo did not have any better luck. He made contact with Felipe Massa on the run into turn 1, leaving them both with punctures.

Alexander Rossi once again out-raced Will Stevens for Manor in 18th. Stevens received a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, and later spun on the exit of 130R.

Felipe Nasr was the only retiree from the race, but was still classified 20th.

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