Nico Rosberg dominated the Japanese GP for the first time after two years losing against Hamilton in this same track. Max Verstappen brought his Red Bull to a fantastic P2 and Lewis Hamilton completed the podium on 3rd. With this result, Mercedes AMG have secured the Constructors Championship for the 3rd year in a row.
Hamilton had a terrible start and dropped from P2 to P8, while Rosberg kept the lead ahead of Verstappen, Pérez and Ricciardo. Vettel overtook Ricciardo on 130R and later on Pérez, who would lose position until being behind Hamilton. The Williams, who started on the medium compound, pitted very late into the race and all the others had to overtake them.
Hamilton did an undercut to Ricciardo and Räikkönen and started chasing Vettel. He didn’t need to overtake him on track because Ferrari pitted him one lap too late and Hamilton took the podium position. Vettel tried to overtake him on track with new soft tyres but the constant difficulties to overtake the lapped cars made him lose the best moment of his tyres.
Hamilton caught Verstappen with a few laps to go, but was unable to overtake. He tried a move at the chicane but Verstappen defended wonderfully. Rosberg drove to victory without mistakes and got his 23rd win, first one in Suzuka. Verstappen and Hamilton completed the podium ahead of Vettel, Räikkönen, Ricciardo, Pérez, Hülkenberg, Massa and Bottas. Rosberg now has a 33 points lead over Hamilton with 4 races to go.
