Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel re-ignited his world championship hopes with an emphatic lights-to-flag victory in the Japanese Grand Prix.
The German finished a second clear of team-mate Mark Webber, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in third.
McLaren team-mates Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were fourth and fifth.
Webber now has a 14-point championship lead, with Alonso second, tied on points with Vettel in third. Hamilton slips to fourth, with Button in fifth.
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Hamilton had looked certain to finish ahead of his team-mate, but his run of bad luck in recent races continued.
Having started the race with a new gearbox and taken a five-place grid penalty to do so, Hamilton was in fourth with 10 laps remaining but lost third gear, enabling Button to catch and pass him.
With just three races to go this season, Hamilton is now 28 points behind Webber, and acknowledged his championship chances are slipping away. BBC Sport
“It was an incredible day with qualifying in the morning and the win in the afternoon,” Vettel said. “It seems like this track was drawn for us. I had a good start which is obviously the key.”
Vettel finished 0.9 seconds ahead of Webber and 2.7 seconds ahead of Alonso.
Alonso said he knew it would be hard to challenge Red Bull.
“It was a tough race and I didn’t make a good start,” Alonso said. “It was impossible to catch the Red Bulls in the first part of the race. I was able to close the gap a little bit later on but we knew coming here they would be tough to beat.”
Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher finished sixth for Mercedes. The Associated Press
Red Bull also increase their lead in the constructors’ title race with 421 points to McLaren’s 381 with Ferrari on 334.
The real drama of the race came early as a first corner crash saw Renault’s Vitaly Petrov, crash into the wall on the outside of the circuit trying to avoid the Williams of Nico Hulkenberg, while Ferrari’s Felipe Massa collided into Force India’s Tonio Liuzzi with both drivers retiring.
Renault’s Robert Kubica, who had moved into second ahead of Webber after a superb start, then retired under the safety car when the right rear wheel of his car worked loose on lap three. CNN International
Tenth seemed destined for Adrian Sutil until his Force India blew its Mercedes engine on Lap 44; he half spun in 130R on his way back to the pits. Thus Sebastien Buemi came through for the final point after Toro Rosso team mate Alguersuari had to make a late pit stop. The Spaniard finished 11th, ahead of Heikki Kovalainen who led Jarno Trulli home for a Lotus one-two in the newbie stakes.
Virgin’s Timo Glock came through to third eventually, and 14th overall. But for a long time Sakon Yamamoto was another hero with a gutsy drive where he stayed ahead of Trulli for a long while and Glock even longer until his tyre stop on Lap 32. Bruno Senna ultimately beat him, having made an early tyre stop, but Yamamoto brought his HRT home an honourable 16th behind him. Formula 1
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