The turning point. But for who?

Once this world championship is finally settled, there will be many incidents or performances that could be singled out as being keys to the outcome. But with the possible exception of Belgium, the Japanese Grand Prix is probably the one that will ultimately determine whether Lewis Hamilton or Felipe Massa is wearing the number one next season.

The first couple of laps at Fuji were as dramatic as the last two at Spa a little over a month earlier. And once again it was Massa and not Hamilton who came out on top. And having been gifted a six-point swing in his favour in Belgium, he got another one-point present from the stewards this time around.

In Japan, the officials saw fit to impose not one but three different penalties that had a direct bearing on the title contenders. It was an extraordinary state of affairs and one that has - inevitably - given further fuel to those who insist that decisions have been made to make life difficult as possible for Hamilton and McLaren.

The McLaren view

It all kicked off of course with the start, or more specifically Hamilton's failure to take advantage of the pole position he had so brilliantly earned. When I asked Ron Dennis why he had been slow away, the answer was a simple one: "We were pretty heavy. We were in very good shape for the race. It's very frustrating."

Of course we'll never know just when Lewis would have stopped relative to Kimi Raikkonen - who came in on lap 17 - but weight is just one of many factors that play a role in the start, and it would be interesting to know a little more.

The key point about what happened next is that this was the first time that an F1 field had approached the first corner at the new Fuji - wet or dry - from a standing start. Finding the optimum braking point was a new experience for everyone.

One man who did have some idea of what to expect was former Japanese F3 contender Adrian Sutil: "I just went to the inside to avoid any crashes and I took six places! I know at this corner it's very hard to measure the braking point on the first lap. I learned from my mistakes earlier in the season when I was trying to brake as late as possible. I took it a bit easier and I gained lots of positions."

Others didn't display the same sort of caution and among them was Lewis. He had every opportunity to say to himself, "this isn't great, but Kimi is not the guy I'm racing," take a more measured approach to Turn 1, and then place himself to take advantage of any slip-up by the Finn. Instead he blasted down the inside, locked up, and sailed straight on.

Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen, Kimi Raikkonen, and Felipe Massa run wide in the first turn of the Japanese Grand Prix © LAT

As far as I can recall, no driver has ever been penalised for a first corner incident, and there have been a few over the years - many of them far more destructive than what Lewis did. But it did look bad on the TV images as he lunged wide and Kimi was forced to adjust his line. The fact that a lot of other people didn't stop quite as well as they wanted to seemed to pass the stewards by. As did the fact that Heikki Kovalainen gave Kimi at least as much trouble, and certainly more of a touch, than did Lewis.

But as I've said before, in the current climate, Hamilton should know that he cannot afford to give any opportunity for the authorities to bash him.

"We're still a bit mystified as to why Lewis got a penalty," said Dennis. "It's just a racing incident. I can remember lots of first corners like that, cars running wide, cold tyres. He flat spotted a tyre, he didn't do anything deliberately. He was just fighting. You see so many times people being critical of races being boring and everything. We're now trying to disincentivise people from racing. I can't understand it.

"Any experienced motor racing person sees it as a motor racing incident. First corner incidents like that are absolutely common place in grand prix racing. There's nothing unusual about it. Everybody's on tyres that haven't got up to optimum temperature and people left their braking late. That's what happens.

"There was no intention to what goes on in these [first] corners because most of the time when people make those mistakes, they're the ones that are penalised."

Of course, the drama continued beyond the first corner. If Hamilton could be forgiven for a first turn lock-up on the basis that it could happen to anyone, what happened a few corners later was not very clever. Having come out Turn 1 in relatively good shape in third place, and with other cars between himself and the Ferraris in his mirrors, he proceeded to slide off the road a few corners later while trying to get back on terms with Fernando Alonso.

Before he could rejoin, four cars, including that of Massa, had gone by. His tyres may have been damaged at Turn 1, but there really was no excuse for this second lapse, at which point he really should have got his emotions in check. It was reminiscent of Bahrain, where he not once but twice touched the back of none other than Alonso.

Even Dennis admitted it was hard to completely exonerate his driver.

"It's all benefit of hindsight isn't it? He's a racing driver. He could have been a bit more mindful of the situation, but I'm sure he was a bit frustrated with himself for screwing up the first corner. I think the thing that really got him was the penalty. He was really bitterly complaining about it in the car. He was just mystified, as were we. But you've just got to get on with the job.

"That's what makes him the driver he is. He's going to fight for positions at every opportunity. You're not going to stop him doing that. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been nice if he had been a little bit more prudent in the first corner. But that's the benefit of hindsight. Some of the things he does, you're in awe of him.

"How long did it take Felipe to get past the Honda? Five or six laps? And he just blasted past him. He entered the corner very late and pulled him in through the high speed corners. You can't just cherry pick aspects of drivers. The fact is he's a great driver. We're going to fight for the world championship, but sometimes it's a bit of an uphill struggle."

Felipe Massa cuts the chicane defending against Lewis Hamilton © XPB

It was interesting to note that Ron said Hamilton was complaining in the car, since that could well have been a distraction: "He was OK. He got on with it, and we were obviously carrying a lot of fuel, so we were very happy with our pace. Without the penalty we would still have got points, that's for sure."

Hamilton's prospects had already taken another dire turn before the penalty was announced. The sight of Massa in front of him was like a red flag to a bull and, at the first opportunity, he made his move. It was a good one, aggressive but fair, and it was Massa who blew it by sliding wide and cutting the chicane.

What happened next was extraordinary. To my mind the Brazilian had every chance of avoiding a collision with Hamilton as he bounced clumsily back onto the track. Lewis had every right to suggest that Massa, vying with the McLaren man in the red mist stakes, had hit him deliberately - and he's not the only driver who's come to that conclusion. Massa felt that Lewis had run him off the road.

"Everybody saw the same TV images that I saw," said Dennis. "He was off the road and he drove back on into the side of Lewis, as simple as that. It was there for everybody to see. Felipe made a huge mistake going in, he ran completely wide and Lewis went on the inside. He was 100 per cent on the circuit, all the time."

It was Hamilton's bad luck that he came to rest facing the traffic and unable to move, although you could see his first reaction was to do so, before he wisely checked himself. With his tyres having gone through two major incidents, and his fuel load not exactly the ideal one if you're at the back of the field, the team wisely called him in.

"He had some aero damage and once you've been spun by the Ferrari there was absolutely no logic in just carrying on. It was the right thing to do, jump for the pits, put on new tyres, give him a lot of fuel. A safety car would have been a boon to us, but in the end, it was the right thing to do."

Thereafter, it was a long old slog for Lewis, as yet again he finished a troubled race out of the points. Massa wasn't quite so far behind, but ultimately he did the better recovery job.

McLaren's initial relief that only one point had gone astray was tempered by the fact that Massa earned another from the Bourdais affair. This was a strange one, for while you could argue that other drivers should at this time at all costs avoid contact with title contenders, Seb was doing his own thing and was perfectly within his rights to come out of the pits and claim the line he was on.

The onus is always on the driver on the track to sort himself out, something which was reiterated in the drivers' briefing at Singapore, where the pit exit was particularly awkward. When the investigation was announced I even thought that Massa might be done for clumsily cutting across the Toro Rosso.

"Bourdais was coming out of the pits," said Dennis. "He was ahead, he was not doing anything wrong, he gets squeezed, and he's the one under investigation. I just can't understand. But it's not our affair."

Sebastien Bourdais hits the kerb avoiding Felipe Massa © XPB

It was a great shame for Bourdais, who deserved to get some points, especially after beating his teammate. A major F1 name told me of an intriguing conspiracy theory with regard to this one.

Bourdais is managed by Nicolas Todt, as is of course, Felipe Massa. The suggestion was that Todt Jr had a quick word in the ear of his secondary driver who, in effect, took the rap so as to give his stablemate a helping hand. Is that how it really happened? It's hard to imagine, but if I told you who came up with that idea, you wouldn't believe me.

The Ferrari view

It may yet come to pass that Massa's charge to seventh place - and the subsequent gift of an extra point from the stewards -proves to be decisive. Whatever one's feelings about the penalty, there's no question that Felipe worked hard to get himself into the position where he had anything at all.

"I'm really happy," said his race engineer, Rob Smedley, before the penalty bonus was confirmed. "We got a point. It wasn't the easiest point we ever got, but I don't think you can knock Felipe and say he can't win races from the back or he can't race, because he's been absolutely brilliant today. He's been stunning. I think he's passed three or four cars in the end.

"We got all the fuel in that we could [at the first stop], so we went as long as we could. It was absolutely the right decision, it was a great call from the pit wall really, the lads who were helping with the strategy. And we just went for it. When we were coming up to cars I told him when we had to pass people, I told him what the gaps were, and he just got on with it, he just did it.

"I think that you've really got to look at his pace in the middle of the race, when he was full of fuel, you've got to look at how well he's really done. OK, he's come out with one point, but you have to look where he started from - he started the race from nowhere, and he was just so quick and passing people."

Interestingly, Rob was a little reticent on the matter of the Hamilton penalty. Like most real racers up and down the pitlane, I suspect he finds the recent rash of driver infringement investigations a little heavy handed.

"I think Lewis got a penalty for pushing Kimi out - you've got to look back at the video - and then Felipe was on the outside again, so they both had to go out to avoid the accident. It would have been a bit of a shame to have both cars go off. So Felipe did absolutely the right thing and braked and got out of the way. Whether the penalty is correct or not, I don't know. I don't really want to comment on it."

Inevitably, he wasn't very happy about the one that his own man received: "Our penalty was I think a little bit strange. They're both racing, it's the first couple of laps of the race and they're both racing. I was bit surprised that we got the penalty, but we live by the rules."

I pointed out that if you go off track, rejoin it, and then thump someone it's usually regarded as justifying a penalty, even if it was part of an ongoing battle for position.

"Yeah, it was an ongoing battle. You can argue both ways, to be perfectly honest with you. But there you go, we got the penalty, and we have to accept it."