LEWIS HAS ONE HAND ON THE TITLE
LEWIS HAMILTON has one hand and three fingers on the Formula One world championship trophy after winning yesterday’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. The Mercedes driver clinched his eighth victory of the season to move 59 points clear in the title race as his nearest rival, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, retired on the fourth lap with a technical fault. There are only four races to go but Hamilton (right) said: ‘Although I could only have dreamt of having this kind of gap, there’s a long way to go.’ The Briton cautioned against complacency in his pursuit of a fourth title, adding: ‘Anything can happen. I’ve just got to try
to keep my head down and continue to perform like this. But I feel very, very fortunate and really blessed, and I am enjoying the experience.’ Vettel, who led the world championship standings for the first 12 races, refused to reproach his Ferrari team, despite recent problems. He said: ‘It’s normal to be critical, especially if things go wrong, because it’s part of our job. But I need to protect them — they’ve done an incredible job so far. It’s just a pity in the last two races to have had reliability issues. But it’s like that sometimes. ‘Of course I’m disappointed, but now it’s important to get some rest and give my all for the last four races and see what happens. ‘We still have a chance this year. Obviously, it’s not as much in our control as we’d like, but overall the team is in a good way.’ This time, Vettel (right) had a spark-plug problem which manifested itself on the out lap and caused the German to be reprimanded for missing the pre-race playing of the Japanese national anthem as his car was being worked on. Fernando Alonso was also ticked off for ignoring blue flags during Hamilton’s late battle with Max Verstappen. It compounded an awful weekend for the Honda-backed McLaren team at the manufacturer’s home race, where Alonso was handed a 35-place grid penalty for engine changes. The race marked the last drive at Renault for Britain’s Jolyon Palmer, who finished 12th. He will be replaced by Carlos Sainz Jnr. ‘It’s a shame not to finish the season, but I’ll work on something else in the future,’ said Palmer.