Not as dull as expected shocker.

Well I'll be, that wasn't too bad in the end. Well okay I did fall asleep for a lap or two in the middle. But I've been up since midnight watching the WEC race from Japan which was, by the way an absolute belter.

Okay, well this is going to be a bit short I'm afraid as the France v Ireland game kicks off in a bit so I have to be ready for that.

Firstly congratulation to Mercedes for securing the Constructors world title today, they needed Kimi to t bone Bottas and get a time penalty to achieve it, but let's be honest it was pretty much a forgone conclusion from about Australia wasn't it. Ferrari had a go at making a fight of it, but the only thing that was going to beat them was reliability, certainly not a Renault or Ferrari engine.

Almost but not quite there, Lewis has one hand on the big silver trophy tonight. He needs to beat Nico by 10 points and Sebastian by 2 in the next race in America and he's home free, given how well he's driving at the moment,  I can't see there being much problem for him .. Once again the only thing that could stop him is reliability.  

And that's the tricky one it's the little things inside the cars that's causing problems for Mercedes at the moment, Lewis failed to finish in Singapore for want a 3 penny spring in the engine.  Now Nico fails to finish because of a washer in the throttle control.  Small stuff that ruins the race and can rob a driver of the title, so it's not all cut and dried just yet!

So Lewis inherited his win, but would probably have passed Nico at some point, or not, who knows. He failed to get pole as like everyone else he couldn't dial the car into the circuit. The limited running they all had meant they had to make a few guesses along the way and Lewis operates best when the car is right underneath him. Nico is the one that can take a loose car and adapt his driving style, it's probably the only thing he's better than Lewis at.   But it was all mote when the throttle stopped working on Hamilton's only real opposition, the Williams didn't have the Legs and Vettel was too far back to push the Merc. So it was a relatively easy win in the end, although there was a slight question about the rear win in the closing laps as Lewis reported it might be loose.  See Lady Luck is a cheeky Minx.

Vettel was second and had to remind Kimi just who was in charge. He got the fastest lap at the end chasing Hamilton.

Perez was third and looked like he'd just won the world championship. Okay he had to rely on Kimi taking out Bottas (lots of people will be buying Kimi a beer on the plan home tonight I suspect) but he put himself there with a trade mark "looking after the tyres on a long run" race. Something he's had a lot of practice at over the years and no, it's not pretty but it gets the results and Force India deserves a break.

Massa was largely anonymous driving from the back of the field to fourth, a poor  qualifying  making life difficult for the Williams driver.

Home boy Kvyat was fifth on a bad day for Renault engine drivers.

Nasr has a good run to sixth to remind everyone that Sauber are still there.

Maldonado wasn't the one to smear a Lotus down the wall this week. Hurrah, he was seventh at the end and the team felt he could have tried just a little bit harder.  

Kimi is eventually classified eighth, the stewards gave him a stiff talking too about driving standards and handed him a 30 second "stop, hold and go" penalty. I think he also gets a grid penalty for a third stiff talking too and points on his licence or something. But I'll check that before we get to America.

Button was ninth with a rubbish underpowered dog of a car and engine. The McLaren headquarters has this big atrium area with all the cars they are most proud of, Le Mans winners and the cars Bruce McLaren designed, stuff like that. The 2015 F1 McLaren Honda should be front and centre, the very first car all the employees should see first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Just to remind them how badly they all got it wrong and how it feels to fail so abjectly. No one ever improved looking at the things that went right, you learn from the things that humiliate you in front of the world.

And finally tenth goes to Verstappen because even though Alonso finished tenth on the road, he didn't feel the need to respect the track limits repeatedly even after the stewards told him to stop being so naughty.   So he got a post race five second penalty and Verstappen beat him to the points by 2.786 seconds.  Tough, tough but fair.

Okay last man standing was Will Stevens who is rapidly becoming Max like in his ability to be rubbish.

Right the rugby is about to start so I'll end it there. See you in two weeks for the crowning of a new champion in Texas.