Rosberg wins, Hamilton third in Japan

SUZAKA, Japan -- Nico Rosberg romped to victory at the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday to extend his lead over world champion Lewis Hamilton in the Formula One title race.

The German claimed his first Suzuka win from pole as Hamilton took third after a dreadful start, Rosberg stretching his lead over his Mercedes rival to 33 points with just four races left this season.

"Woooooooh!" cried Rosberg over team radio after a fourth triumph in five races since the summer break and his ninth of 2016.

"Thanks a lot, guys. An Amazing weekend and congrats on winning the constructors (championship)," he added after he and Hamilton secured a third successive team title.

"It's 33 points, but I'm not focused on that. There's still a long way to go so I'm just keeping my head down."

Red Bull's Max Verstappen held off a furious challenge from Hamilton in the final few laps to take second after also finishing runner-up in Malaysia last weekend.

The Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen finished fourth and fifth after both turned the air blue over radio, complaining about back markers.

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, who inherited victory in Malaysia after Hamilton's engine caught fire, took sixth ahead of the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg.

Hamilton, who has now failed to win since Hockenheim at end of July, almost fought back to take second as he tried to duck around Verstappen coming into the chicane on the last lap.

But the Dutch teenager blocked off the inside, forcing the Mercedes to lock up and skid into an escape road.

Rosberg, whose Finnish father Keke won the 1982 Formula One title, failed to convert pole position into victory in Japan the past two years, both times losing out to Hamilton.

But he got away cleanly this time, while Hamilton fell to eighth, radioing to the pits: "Sorry, guys."

"No stress, Lewis," came the reply before Hamilton began a rousing charge through the field to make up places.

Hamilton, who had hinted at sabotage from within his Mercedes team after his third power unit failure of the year last week in Malaysia, cut a forlorn figure on the podium, the 100th of his career.

"I did the best I could with where I was in the race," he said.

"I'll give it everything I've got (for the rest of the season), and we'll see what happens. Nico did a great job, so congrats to him."

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Rosberg leads Hamilton in opening practice at Suzuka

SUZUKA, Japan - World championship leader Nico Rosberg set the pace ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton as Mercedes dominated Friday's opening session of practice for the Japanese Grand Prix.

The German set the lead with one minute, 32.431 seconds, 0.215 seconds quicker than Hamilton, on a pleasant and sunny morning at the Suzuka circuit.

The Mercedes pair were a second clear of the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen who were third and fourth-fastest, respectively.

Vettel heads into the weekend carrying a three-place grid penalty for tipping Rosberg into a spin at the start of the last race in Malaysia.

Rosberg extended his lead over Hamilton to 23 points in the overall standings after the Briton was forced to retire from a comfortable lead in the Sepang race 16 laps from the finish.

As a result, Hamilton heads into Sunday's Japanese round desperately needing to revive his flagging title hopes with just five races remaining by clinching a third successive win at the Suzuka circuit.

Daniel Ricciardo, who inherited the win from Hamilton following his retirement in Malaysia was fifth fastest.

Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen, who claimed second behind the Australian to secure the team's first one-two finish since the 2013 season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix, was sixth.

Force India, locked in a battle for fourth in the overall team standings with Williams, showed a strong initial turn of speed.

German Nico Hulkenberg was seventh-fastest for the Silverstone-based squad, ahead of Mexican team-mate Sergio Perez, who trialled the 'halo' cockpit protection device.

Fernando Alonso, hoping to impress on home soil for Honda, his McLaren team's engine supplier, was ninth.

The Spaniard survived an early collision with the barriers when his car snapped out of control on the entry to the fast Spoon corner and slid backwards into the tyre wall lining the track.

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

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Hamilton hot favorite for triple triumph

LONDON - Lewis Hamilton starts the Formula One season as red-hot favorite to become a triple world champion but Niki Lauda, who knows how that feels, fears the battle could be tougher than ever.

The Briton won 11 races to Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg's five last year, with Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo taking the other three, and heads for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 15 with every reason to be confident.

The 'Silver Arrows' have been ominous in testing, lapping with metronomic efficiency and eye-openingly faster than anyone else once they finally got around to bolting on the quicker soft tyres.

"Expectations are enormously high because we won everything that we could win last year," triple champion Lauda, now non-executive chairman of the Mercedes works team, told Reuters in an interview.

"The logic is that everybody expects and wants to have the same thing (again) but I can tell you it is not that easy. A new season is a new season and everything starts from scratch.

"I think Lewis and Nico will fight again like always for the championship but my worry is there will be a third guy also getting involved, no question."

Who that man turns out to be remains an open question, although Finland's Valtteri Bottas may be a shrewd bet after Williams looked closest to Mercedes in testing.

The ever-smiling Ricciardo, now Red Bull's team leader following the departure of four times champion Sebastian Vettel to Ferrari, looks another solid candidate to take the fight to Mercedes.

"At the moment I would say that Williams is the closest, Red Bull and Ferrari I cannot tell you now because they had some signs of speed and then nothing happens again. Red Bull you can never under-estimate," said Lauda.

"They are all trying to catch up...the question is how close can they get?"

If last year was dominated by the duel, and deteriorating relationship, between Hamilton and Rosberg then fans can expect more of the same in a season that will be both faster and louder than 2014.

The latest William Hill betting odds have Hamilton 8/13 favourite to become only the second Briton after Jackie Stewart to take three titles, Rosberg 5/2 for the title and Vettel at 14/1 with Ricciardo 20/1.

"For me it's clear that Nico will attack even more this year because he lost last year, very simple," said Lauda. "I think it's going to be a tighter fight between them, because Nico wants to make sure now he can beat him."

The rules have not altered dramatically over the winter, with changes to the fronts of the cars and power unit allocation reduced from five to four per driver per season.

Honda have returned as partners to McLaren, after leaving the sport as a constructor in 2008, while Mexico City is back on the calendar for the first time since 1992.

Vettel's switch to underperforming Ferrari, where he follows in the footsteps of seven times champion and compatriot Michael Schumacher, was the headline move along with Fernando Alonso's return to misfiring McLaren.

Alonso will be absent from Australia on doctors' orders, with the Spaniard still recovering from his crash in testing in Barcelona last month, with Denmark's Kevin Magnussen serving as a stand-in.

Dutch rookie Max Verstappen will become the youngest ever driver, at just 17 years old, with Spanish newcomer Carlos Sainz joining him at Toro Rosso in a line up with a combined age of just 37.

Only 10 teams are entered in what should be a 20 race championship, subject to Germany being confirmed, with Caterham losing their fight for survival and some others facing another tough struggle to keep going.

"I think we are at very significant risk of losing more teams. We said that last year and nothing's changed," Force India deputy principal Bob Fernley told Reuters. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)

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Rosberg wins in Brazil to cut Hamilton's lead

SAO PAULO - Germany's Nico Rosberg won the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday to end team mate Lewis Hamilton's run of five successive victories and cut the Briton's championship lead to 17 points with one race remaining.

Hamilton took the chequered flag 1.4 seconds behind after setting the fastest lap, with Mercedes breaking Formula One records with 11 one-two finishes and 30 podium placings in a season.

"It was a great weekend," said Rosberg, who started on pole position after lapping fastest in phase of qualifying at Interlagos.

"The whole weekend I've been feeling comfortable in the car, I was able to attack and control the gap to Lewis in the race so that worked out great.

"There's still all to play for. I just need to keep this going now," added the German, whose win made up for last weekend when he started on pole in Texas and lost out to Hamilton.

The final race at Abu Dhabi on Nov. 23 will offer double points for the first time, and 50 for the winner, but Hamilton needs only a second-place finish to wrap up his second title.

Hamilton has 334 points to Rosberg's 317.

The team's victory equalled the record of 15 in a season held jointly by Ferrari and McLaren, with Rosberg now on five to his British rival's 10.

BIG MISTAKE

The two Mercedes drivers were in a race of their own on a sunny Sao Paulo afternoon

Hamilton's only scare came on lap 28 as he pushed to gain an advantage when Rosberg pitted, spinning and skidding off at turn four. That cost him seven seconds and a chance to win.

"I was much quicker up until that point and on that lap I'd gone a second quicker while Nico pitted," the Briton told reporters. "I thought I was going to pit at the end of that lap so I used everything of the tyres.

"The next lap I had nothing left."

After he pitted, the 2008 champion steadily narrowed the gap until the 'Silver Arrows' were just half a second apart. But Rosberg never allowed him to get close enough to make a move.

"It was an amazing race," said Hamilton, who had hoped to become the first British driver to win six races in a row.

Brazilian Felipe Massa returned to the podium in front of a cheering crowd with third place for Williams, 41 seconds behind despite a stop/go penalty for speeding in the pitlane.

Massa had only himself to blame when he also pulled in to the McLaren pits instead of Williams.

"I'm so happy with the race, not happy with my mistakes today," he said.

"I stopped in McLaren (garage) because they changed our garage this race and we are a lot more in the middle and McLaren with the similar colour...I thought it was our garage."

Mercedes-engined cars filled the four top slots, with McLaren's Jenson Button fourth, and Red Bull's quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel fifth.

Ferrari duo Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen were sixth and seventh with Force India's Nico Hulkenberg eighth and McLaren's Kevin Magnussen ninth. Finland's Valtteri Bottas took the last point for Williams.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo, winner of three races this season, retired his Red Bull to end a run of 15 scoring races in a row. The outgoing champions at least ensured they finished runners-up in the standings.

Only nine teams and 18 cars started, with Marussia no longer in business and Caterham in administration.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Tony Jimenez/Gene Cherry)

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Rosberg wins season-opening Australian GP

MELBOURNE - Nico Rosberg drew first blood for Mercedes in the new Formula One season with a dominant Australian Grand Prix victory on Sunday after pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton and world champion Sebastian Vettel retired with reliability problems.

The 28-year-old German capitalised on a brilliant start from third on the grid, snatching the lead before the first turn and roaring to a 24.5-second victory ahead of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo under a cloudy sky at Albert Park.

Danish rookie Kevin Magnussen finished third on his race debut for McLaren.

Rosberg, tipped to duel with team mate Hamilton for the championship, celebrated his fourth race victory and first since last year's British Grand Prix, when he was also the beneficiary of technical mishaps to Hamilton and Vettel.

"Brilliant stuff, what a car you've given me! What a car!" Rosberg said over the team radio after crossing the line.

The gaping margin of victory underscored Mercedes' superior preparations for F1's technical revolution, which saw all teams struggle during winter testing with the new V6 turbocharged hybrid engines.

The glitches continued as only 14 of the 22 cars finished on a gusty day at the bumpy street circuit which was doused by a brief rain-shower early in the race.

Hamilton, who snatched pole position at the end of a wet qualifying session on Saturday, noticeably lacked power on his start and was called in by his team to retire on the third lap.

Twelfth off the grid, Vettel also struggled at the start and retired only a few laps after Hamilton, complaining of engine performance problems.

That snapped a nine-race winning streak for the German dating back to the Belgian Grand Prix in August.

Ricciardo thrilled home fans by taking his maiden podium spot in his first race weekend with Red Bull and drove with admirable composure after being challenged by Magnussen over the closing laps.

Magnussen's podium, the first by a Dane in Formula One and the team's first since 2012, was an exact match of Hamilton's first F1 race for McLaren in 2007 when the Briton qualified fourth and finished third.

McLaren's Jenson Button finished fourth, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso fifth.

Williams driver Valtteri Bottas finished sixth for his best F1 result after an outstanding race from 15th on the grid. His eight point haul was more than his team scored in all of last season.

The race began farcically, with Marussia driver Max Chilton stalling on the grid before the pre-start installation lap and his team mate Jules Bianchi then repeating the mishap, forcing a second formation lap.

Both Marussias started from pit-lane behind Lotus's Romain Grosjean, who was also dealt a drive-through penalty for leaving his garage prior to the 15-minute signal before the race.

Japan's Kamui Kobayashi lived up to his reputation as a combustible racer by ploughing into the back of Felipe Massa's Williams at the start, taking both drivers out of the race at the first corner and prompting an FIA investigation.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Sudipto Ganguly/Alan Baldwin)

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