Nico Rosberg pulls clear in title race after Lewis Hamilton’s horror start

Mercedes insist that their troubled driver Lewis Hamilton can still take the Formula One season to the wire despite another hard weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix. Arigato! Now we need to focus on the last four races.

Ron Dennis described McLaren’s season as 5/10 before the race, but the team boss would be extremely kind to give the Woking outfit a similar score assessing their Japan performance.

It was Rosberg’s ninth victory of the season as he closes in on his first Formula One world championship and Hamilton had to be content with third place behind Max Verstappen.

Hamilton finished third as Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg won and is 33 points behind the German with a maximum of 100 still available.

Verstappen has drawn criticism from other drivers for his defensive driving throughout the campaign, clashing with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in particular, and stood his ground when questioned on the latest incident.

He eventually climbed his way back up the leaderboard but could not finish ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who held onto second place.

Both Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenburg brought in points for Force India, finishing seventh and eight, respectively.

But when the triple world champion tried to duck around the Dutch teenager approaching the chicane, he slammed the door by blocking off the inside, forcing the Mercedes to take evasive action.

Vettel was faster initially but lost the pace, while Hamilton set sail looking to catch Max Verstappen, and came up short.

In 2014 and 2015, Hamilton defeated Rosberg in Japan after starting second.

But Wolff said the flight was not the right time to address with Hamilton the series of media controversies in which he found himself embroiled at Suzuka.

Rosberg s progress was untroubled, however, as he twisted the knife with a masterful drive. “I have been in the same situation last year and earlier this year, I understand from their (back-markers) perspective you want to race but the guys lapping you are racing for a podium so you have to have a different approach”.

The Brit, who fumed at Mercedes after the Malaysia mishap, also congratulated his team for their success this season before explaining why he had another poor start on Sunday. “He was working the longest hours I have seen him work in many months trying to get the little extra bit of lap time”. “I’m happy with clawing it back and getting some points, it’s good”.