Dennis says title battle isn't over yet

With only two races left to go, Hamilton has opened up a 12-point lead in the drivers' championship over teammate Fernando Alonso, with Kimi Raikkonen a further five points adrift.

But despite the strong position his drivers are in, Dennis insists that his team will stay fully concentrated on helping both Hamilton and Alonso to more success.

"The team are calm and focused," he said. "Even now, we'll relax a bit tonight, but we want to concentrate on the remaining two races. Clearly Lewis is in a strong position, but it's clearly not over for Fernando."

Dennis praised the job Hamilton did in keeping things together on the treacherous Fuji circuit in what could prove to have been the decisive race of the world championship.

"We had to be careful with information overload - visibility was so bad he couldn't rely on his pit signals," he said. "So we were feeding him with data and it was difficult to know how much to give him. But overall it was a tremendously well-disciplined race.

"(Robert) Kubica made life very interesting, and it was a strange thing to do in such poor conditions. We were very lucky not to damage the car.

"There was some vibration coming from the car, which we were monitoring, but we could see it wasn't suspension. We anticipated some bodywork damage but he was very disciplined. A tremendous race."

He added: "The challenge for a driver - especially one leading the race - is not to drive too quickly. The challenge for the team is not to go too much on slowing him down. The message is not to take too many risks.

"We kept him informed of where the puddles were - where the heaviest parts of water were, and we were encouraging him to back off in Turn 4, and Turn 10 where we could see the standing water.

"It was a disciplined race. But it's not over for Fernando and we will give both drivers equal opportunities to win the world championship."