Whether Ferrari’s sudden downturn in performance is related to its second sensor or Mercedes is simply winning the development war is unclear. What we do know is Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton are almost certain to win the 2018 F1 constructors and drivers titles. Both Mercedes easily locked out the front row during qualifying. This is a time when Ferrari needed to show up, but they stumbled and it left Vettel stranded in 9th. 

But even if Ferrari and Vettel had not errored in quali they would have been 3rd at best. Race day and Lewis Hamilton simply strolled to victory without breaking into a sweat. Both Mercedes were cruising throughout the 52 lap race.

They were the calm at the center of the storm and behind them, it raged. Vettel made a great start, up into 4th by lap 1 after Verstappen and Raikkonen banged wheels into the slow chicane before the main straight.

Raikkonen slipped back to 5th Verstappen retained 3rd, picked up a 5 second penalty and now had Vettel to contend with.

A safety car was deployed until lap 8 to clear up debris from a Kevin Magnussen altercation. As soon as the safety car period was over Vettel attacked a slow Verstappen going into the spoon corner.

Verstappen and Vettel entered the corner side by side but Verstappen was slightly ahead. Right on the apex, the two collided, Vettel spun around into the runoff area. Sparks flew off Verstappen’s car as it bottomed out at high-speed.

The Red Bull took a long way round spoon but Verstappen was fine and retained the position. Vettel had to wait for the rest of the field to pass before safely rejoining the track. This is the point that the championship slipped further away.

A pivotal moment of the race as Max survives to finish P3 🏆#JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/hjuvK9at8f

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) October 7, 2018

After that Vettel was in recovery mode and used the superiority of his car to claw his way back to finish the race in 6th.

Meanwhile, Verstappen closed on Bottas in the closing stages of the race. However, Bottas had more than enough in hand to keep Verstappen behind… just.

At the front, Lewis Hamilton claimed his 71st career victory, 13 seconds ahead of teammate Bottas. With five races to go Hamilton now has a 63 point lead over Vettel.

Only a run of disastrous results can prevent Hamilton from securing his 5th world drivers title. The odds are in Hamilton’s favor.