How Rosberg put Hamilton on the ropes

For much of this Formula 1 season the focus has been on Lewis Hamilton, the reliability problems his Mercedes has suffered, and his valiant efforts to fight back from the early deficit in the title battle those problems gave him.

Hamilton was slowly but surely getting the job done, so that attention was warranted. This F1 season was shaping up to be a real comeback story for the reigning world champion; a journey of redemption against difficult odds.

Then Malaysia happened. Hamilton had that race in the bag. He was about to reclaim the championship lead. Then the big-end bearing in his Mercedes engine's crankshaft failed, and his engine blew up catastrophically and inexplicably. Twenty-five points down the drain. His championship charge halted - by pure, dumb bad luck.

Focus on Hamilton's travails only increased as the F1 paddock descended on Japan. Amid the swirling hyperbole of conspiracy theories, higher powers, destiny, and Snapchat media-storm-in-a-tea-cup controversy, Hamilton knew as well as anyone that he desperately needed a strong result, now more than ever.

With five races left, this was still just about in Hamilton's hands. He came into the weekend trailing Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg by 23 points. With a difference of seven between finishing first and second, Hamilton just needed to win every remaining race to be guaranteed a third-consecutive world championship title.

Amid all this focus on Hamilton's topsy-turvy season, Rosberg has quietly gone about winning a first world championship of his own. Apart from those early-season collisions with his team-mate in Spain and Austria, Rosberg has simply kept his head down and got on with the job.

'One race at a time' is his oft-repeated mantra, and before Suzuka he'd won eight of them. Whichever way you slice it, that is the winning form of a champion.

He surely knew Suzuka was a pivotal weekend for him too. Lose and the championship could still be wrestled from his grasp regardless of his own exploits; win here and the championship would absolutely become his to lose.

High stakes indeed. Both drivers rose to the occasion. But while Rosberg calmly delivered the perfect weekend - topping every practice session, claiming pole position and winning the race comfortably, Hamilton made a couple of key mistakes that helped hand the initiative firmly to his chief title rival.

Firstly and crucially, Hamilton over-reached in his efforts to out-do Rosberg in qualifying. Rosberg had taken pole for this race in each of the previous two seasons, and Hamilton admitted after Friday practice that Suzuka was "not up in the top of my best tracks, even though I love it".

Hamilton felt he needed to do something special to get the edge on Rosberg here, and revealed after qualifying on Saturday that he'd diverged on car set-up. That turned out to be the wrong move.

Hamilton had migrated back towards Rosberg's settings for qualifying, but that was too little too late. He came mighty close, but missed out on a crucial pole position by just 0.013 seconds.

That put Hamilton on the damp and disadvantageous side of the grid for the race, but there was still hope. Last season he bullied Rosberg into the first two corners and won the race. It could still be done.

Unfortunately Hamilton blew his shot at a crucial victory with yet another abysmal start. He dumped the clutch too quickly as the red lights went out, and just sat there spinning wheels as his Mercedes dropped like a stone down the order.

"I don't think the damp patch had really anything to do with it," said Hamilton. "I just made a mistake."

The start has been a real weak point for Hamilton this season, but an erratic one. Sometimes his getaways have been excellent, but far too many too have been extremely poor.

The Mercedes clutch is clearly not easy to handle. Rosberg has also suffered at times, but not so often as Hamilton. It seems this key discrepancy between the two could be down to minute details of operation, as much as fundamental flaws with the system.

"The clutch we are giving them is not perfect," admitted Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. "It is difficult to handle in the right way.

"Both drivers have worked on that, going as far as changing the way the glove is sewn in order to release it [better].

"This is just one aspect, as well as how you release it and how you hold the revs, and that is very complicated.

"Then there is the random factor of getting all that right, and that is not always very easy with the clutch."

So Rosberg deserves credit for generally making a better fist of this crucial skill. Having nailed his own start from pole, he led Max Verstappen's Red Bull and Sergio Perez's fast-starting Force India into the first two corners, as Hamilton scrabbled for traction, finding himself down in eighth after the opening lap.

This was now a race of damage limitation for Hamilton. His first target was Nico Hulkenberg's Force India. He tried a brave move at 130R on lap six of 53, which didn't quite work out, but got the job done easily with the aid of DRS into Turn 1 at the start of the next lap.

Hamilton ran a slightly extended first stint, which helped him emerge from his first pitstop ahead of Perez, and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari.

Squabbling with each other, and Jolyon Palmer's Renault, following their own first stops delayed these two, and helped Hamilton negate the power of fresh tyres from their earlier pitstops.

He passed Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull (delayed off the grid by Hamilton's slow start), approaching 130R on lap 14, and cleared the long-running Williams duo shortly afterwards, passing Felipe Massa into Turn 1 and Valtteri Bottas at 130R.

Fifteen laps done and Hamilton was back up to fourth, but now almost 20 seconds adrift of Rosberg.

Rosberg was clear out in front, but seemingly unable to shake off Verstappen's Red Bull, which had again displayed strong long-run pace during Friday practice.

The Dutch teenager closed to within three seconds of Rosberg after the first round of pitstops, and looked initially in the second stint as though he might have a shot at challenging Mercedes for victory.

But Rosberg eked out a crucial advantage as the laps ticked off, suggesting he always held the Red Bull challenge in check.

HOW ROSBERG MANAGED THE GAP - STINT 2

"I was just managing the race," Rosberg confirmed. "There was no need to pull out 15 seconds, so it was about keeping a healthy gap. That's what I was driving to.

"It's also my last race on this engine cycle. I'm going to have a new one in Austin, so that definitely played into today."

Meanwhile, Hamilton was now engaged in a battle with Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari for third.

Vettel started down in sixth, thanks to a grid penalty for driving into Rosberg at the first corner in Malaysia, but a strong start got him around Ricciardo, and Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen, and into fourth on the first lap here.

Vettel made short work of passing Perez in the early stages, and looked very much in the fight with Verstappen over the first half of the race, but a strategic gamble from Ferrari, coupled with some time lost lapping backmarkers, cost Vettel his chance of a podium finish.

VETTEL CHIPS AWAY AT VERSTAPPEN - STINT 2

Sensing Vettel was threatening Verstappen, Red Bull pulled its driver in for a second stop on lap 28. Mercedes protected Rosberg by pulling him in for another set of hard tyres at the end of the following tour.

Ferrari elected to leave Vettel out for another five laps, during which time he briefly assumed the lead. But this also allowed Hamilton to close in rapidly as Vettel attempted to stretch out tyre life.

HAMILTON CATCHES VETTEL - STINT 2

Mercedes pulled Hamilton in for his second stop at the end of lap 33, which allowed the reigning world champion to jump the Ferrari when Vettel finally stopped for a second time at the end of lap 34.

Vettel emerged from the pits 1.398s behind Hamilton's Mercedes, but on fresh soft tyres. He complained furiously over team radio about losing time in traffic.

Had he lost less time while lapping Pascal Wehrlein's Manor, Vettel probably would have emerged from the pits ahead of the Mercedes.

"Lewis had a very good out lap, on top of that I ran into traffic," explained Vettel, who backed Ferrari's decision to "take the risk" on strategy, even though he could have retained track position over Hamilton with a different call from the pitwall.

"I lost 1.5s at the beginning of the lap because I couldn't get past, I think it was one of the Manors. Turn 11 [the hairpin] is low grip already, I locked up behind him and lost another chunk of time, which led to the fact we came out behind even though we were convinced we should have come out ahead.

"We were not lucky today when we hit the blue flags. Lewis got around four seconds just around the lapped cars at that point. That's how it goes. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."

Vettel's only hope of retaliation lay in the fact he was now on the fresh soft tyres he should have been using to attack Verstappen, compared to Hamilton's hard compound Pirellis.

HAMILTON PULLS CLEAR OF VETTEL - STINT 3

Vettel pushed hard initially, but he couldn't live with the Mercedes in a straight line. Mercedes was operating "less spicy" (Wolff's words) engine settings at this race, following Hamilton's Sepang failure, but they had less impact in detuned race mode than in qualifying.

Vettel burned up his tyres in Hamilton's slipstream, and his hopes of a podium faded with them.

But the hard driving in the interim set Hamilton into a fierce pursuit of Verstappen's Red Bull.

HAMILTON'S CHASE OF VERSTAPPEN TO THE FLAG

With eight laps to go Hamilton closed to within DRS range, but Verstappen did a good job managing the gap, and tactically using his recovered electrical energy to repel Hamilton's advances on the main straight.

The way Verstappen focused on the exit of the final chicane to keep the Mercedes out of reach was reminiscent of the tactics that helped him beat Raikkonen's Ferrari to victory in May's Spanish GP.

But Hamilton gradually ground Verstappen down, and on the penultimate lap he made his move. Hamilton used superior drive coming off the Spoon Curve to close on Verstappen along the back straight and through 130R.

Bearing down on the final chicane Hamilton made for the space on the inside, only for Verstappen to employ one of his patented late defensive moves as they approached the braking zone.

Seeing the gap rapidly shrinking, Hamilton swerved left at the last moment and took to the escape road.

Hamilton complained over team radio that "Max moved under braking", and Mercedes later protested Verstappen's driving, alleging he "drove erratically and in a dangerous manner" according to FIA documentation.

But this protest was quickly withdrawn, with Hamilton's full support, so the original result stood, with Rosberg claiming victory from Verstappen, and Hamilton third.

It was a good recovery drive from Hamilton, but this was a weekend in which he really needed much more than that. He needed to dominate, in the way he had done in Malaysia.

Some suggested Hamilton self-destructed at Suzuka, perturbed by the disappointment of Sepang and perceived slights from sections of the media following his antics at the pre-event FIA press conference.

But Rosberg saw no such thing from his chief rival.

"I haven't seen any self-destruction," he countered. "The Lewis I saw was massively motivated and focused as ever.

"He was working the longest hours I've seen him work with the engineers in many, many months, trying to find those little bits of lap time.

"Anyway it's about me getting the best out of myself, and not focusing on what Lewis' state of mind is."

This was a superb performance from Rosberg, who found his groove nice and early, and simply never looked back. Hamilton worked hard to get the upper hand and generally drove well, but ultimately the better man won on the day.

"From the get go I felt really comfortable out on track," Rosberg added. "I was able to push throughout the weekend, and got everything right. It's really been a perfect weekend from me, and I'm very happy with that."

With his ninth victory of the season in the bag, Rosberg leads the championship by 33 points with four races to go. He can now afford to finish second to Hamilton at every remaining race to be crowned.

If Malaysia was the race in which fate conspired to steal Hamilton's thunder from him, Japan was the moment Rosberg seized a chance to take firm control of this title battle with a brilliant, methodical display.

That tiny edge in qualifying and a far superior start ultimately did the damage. The destiny of this championship is now very much in Rosberg's hands.