Lewis Hamilton wins Japanese Grand Prix to move closer to world title after Sebastian Vettel's early retirement

The Briton started on pole and his Mercedes performed in the Suzuka heat to extend his lead to 59 points in the drivers' standings

Lewis Hamilton's win coupled with Sebastian Vettel's retirement extended the Brit's lead (AFP)

Whatever sweet nothings Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel might have been whispering in Lady Luck’s ear lately, she hasn’t been buying them. As Lewis Hamilton narrowly fended off the advances of Malaysian GP winner Max Verstappen in a tense Japanese GP that opened up his points advantage to 59, the German’s car let him down again as he was forced to retire after only four laps.

In an echo of Sepang only last weekend, when Kimi Raikkonen hit trouble even before the race, Ferrari mechanics were looking at Vettel’s engine on the grid. There was a problem with, of all things, a spark plug. Once the bane of racing cars, they hardly ever go wrong today.

This time the car was able to take the start, however, and seemed okay as Vettel chased Hamilton away. But soon Verstappen had snatched second place away at the hairpin, and a lap later fast-starting Esteban Ocon and Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo also rudely thrust past the red car going into the first corner, followed by Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes.

Two laps later, the man who had already received a reprimand for missing the national anthem, received the instruction ‘Box, box, box!’ from his team and trickled into the pits to retire.

In the course of three races, as Hamilton and Mercedes have battled back to competitive pitch, Ferrari’s challenge has literally fallen apart, leaving them a mountain to climb in the final four events.

"It's normal you're critical, especially if things go wrong, so it's part of our job," Vettel told Sky Sports F1. "But I think I need to protect them. We've done an incredible job so far. It’s obviously a pity the last two races with the reliability issues, but you know, it's like that sometimes.

"Of course it hurts, and we're all disappointed. But now we need to get back, get some rest and then go flat out for the last four races and see what happens.

Hamilton started from pole and dominated the race (Getty)

"We still have a chance, but yeah, obviously it's not as much in our control as we'd like. Overall the team is in a good way and we are improving race by race.We've gone a lot further than people thought. So, there's also some positives. But, now you don't look at the positives, because it's not the day to look at positives."

Hamilton would sail on, if not always serenely.

His early lead of 1.4s over Verstappen in the first lap was negated by deployment of the safety car on the second lap after Carlos Sainz, in his last race for Toro Rosso prior to replacing Briton Jolyon Palmer at Renault, crashed in Turn 7 on the opening lap. Some felt that this was unnecessary, and that the virtual safety car could have been just as effective, but the FIA have unhappy memories of the situation here in 2014 when Jukes Bianchi crashed and sustained the injuries from which he subsequently died, and tend to err on the side of caution.

When the track cleared Hamilton and Verstappen soon resumed their battle, but gradually the Mercedes driver began to pull away. He was five seconds clear when Verstappen made his sole pit stop on the 21^st lap, and Hamilton covered that next time around.

Hamilton set the pace early (Getty)

On the soft Pirellis, however, the Mercedes looked less happy than it had on the supersofts, and for the remainder of the race the Dutchman kept him firmly on his toes.

There had a been a virtual safety car deployment on the eighth lap after Marcus Ericsson nosed his Sauber into the wall at Degner 2; there was another on the 48th, however, when Lance Stroll’s Williams broke its front suspension going through the final section of the esses, narrowly missing a passing Ricciardo. And that was very nearly Hamilton’s undoing.

As the Briton struggled with cold tyres when the track went green on the 50^th lap, Verstappen was all over him and looking at his most threatening. When they came up to lap Felipe Massa, who was being hounded by Fernando Alonso, Hamilton lost time, managed to lap the McLaren, and then watched in his mirrors as the Spaniard cut sharply back in front of Verstappen. He was investigated afterwards by the stewards, though Verstappen said that he didn’t think he could have overtaken Hamilton.

Hamilton held off Verstappen at the death (Getty)

“I could see Lewis was managing tyres, but in traffic it was more difficult for him to follow, so I closed up but then wasn’t really able attack because of the aero effect,” Verstappen said. “The thing with Fernando didn’t help, but for me the last lap was difficult too. I could close up when he was getting held up, but at the end of the day I don’t think I could have passed him. The Fernando thing wasn’t ideal, but it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

In the end, they were separated by 1.2s, but at one stage the gap had been under a second.

“It got close towards the end,” Hamilton revealed. “I had a comfortable gap to the pit stop, then Max did the undercut and gained time stopping before me. I took it easy on my out lap, he closed the gap to 1.2s before I got it out to three and was controlling the pace, but the second VSC lost me a lot of temperature in the tyres and waking them up wasn’t easy, so I was losing so much time. His car was so big in my mirrors! Once I got by Fernando and then Felipe it was okay, but it wasn’t any easy walk in the park, we had to work very hard.

The result leaves Hamilton 59 points ahead in the driver's standings (Getty)

“It wasn’t a massive fight out on the track, but we all know how good Max is. He’s very fast and consistent, they seem to be at least within a tenth of us in the race. But he won the last race, so today I was not letting him have this one. It was all about not making mistakes, and driving down the back straight one lap I was thinking, ‘This guy behind me is so much younger than me, I’ve got to man up and show him that I’m still young at heart, too. I’m not letting this little so and so by me!’.

“I’m enjoying being in an era with so much young talent coming through. He’ll be there long after I stop, but I’m not letting him win much now…”

Ricciardo hung on to get the Suzuka podium he’s always wanted, but Bottas attacked him fiercely after starting on the soft tyres and running the supersofts in his final stint. He just failed by nine-tenths of a second to challenge for the final podium position. An unhappy Raikkonen salvaged fifth for Ferrari.