Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel dominated the Japanese Grand Prix from start to finish to keep his slim world title hopes alive, while Rubens Barrichello finished one place ahead of Brawn GP team-mate Jenson Button to inch one point closer to the championship leader.
Vettel was in a class of his own throughout, pulling as much as 10 seconds ahead at one stage before a safety car period in the closing laps (triggered by a huge crash for Jaime Alguersuari) concertinaed the field.
Jarno Trulli lost second place to Lewis Hamilton at the start but regained it at the final pit stop exchange to record Toyota’s second consecutive runner-up finish, this time at its home event.
Hamilton lost time with a slow exit from the pits and then was hobbled by a KERS problem in the closing stages, but managed to fend off Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari for third.
Meanwhile, Button again played a perfect game of damage limitation after the points leader recovered well from his grid penalty and a poor start to finish eighth behind Barrichello.
It means Button now has a 14-point advantage over his Brazilian team-mate heading into the season’s final two races, with Vettel clinging on 16 points adrift.
Brawn's seven-eight finish meant it narrowly failed to clinch the constructors’ title but the trophy is now on ice for the Brackley-based team, which has 35.5 points in hand over Red Bull with just 36 still up for grabs.
However, that particular crown could yet be settled this weekend with the stewards currently investigating whether fifth-placed Nico Rosberg lapped too quickly on his way to the pit lane for his final stop once the safety car had been called.
The Williams driver, who had been in a close battle with the two Brawns over sixth, seventh and eighth, re-emerged from his stop in fifth and the championship-leading team is adamant Rosberg set his quickest middle sector time of the race when he should have been cruising on his in-lap.
Whatever the outcome of that investigation, Vettel will still go to Brazil with his championship hopes alive after the 22-year-old delivered the type of lights-to-flag masterclass he is fast becoming renowned for.
At the start the KERS-equipped Hamilton pounced on the first front-row starter in his sights, Trulli, and positioned himself to the right of left of pole man Vettel on the run down to the first corner.
However, the McLaren driver would have soon run out of track should he have attempted a move around the outside of the Red Bull, so it was Vettel who lead the field through the super-fast right-hander.
Further back and Button was coming under attack from KERS cars behind him on the fifth row, namely the second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella’s Ferrari, and reached the first corner in 12th - although he soon took one place back from the latter.
But while the championship runner was again toiling at the start of a race, Vettel quickly showed he was in no mood to waste the opportunity to stay in the title hunt by immediately pulling clear of Hamilton at the front.
By the end of lap two the German was already 1.9s ahead of the McLaren andthen steadily continued to lap the 3.6-mile circuit several tenths quicker to give himself a handy 2.6s lead by the end of lap six.
By this time Button had regained his starting position of 10th after expertly passing BMW’s Robert Kubica under braking for the chicane, the Brawn driver having got onto the Pole’s tail after a better run through 130R.
However, while it moved him that one place closer to the points, Button soon found his attempts at further progress significantly blunted by the scrapping Kovalainen and Force India’s Adrian Sutil.
Kovalainen had quickly fallen off the pace of BMW's Nick Heidfeld, Raikkonen, Barrichello and Rosberg ahead and was clearly holding Sutil up.
Button in turn was starting to complain over the radio of suffering with understeer in the pair’s turbulent air.
But just when all sorts of nightmare scenarios may have been beginning to loom large in his mind with several one-stoppers in striking distance behind, Button benefited from the kind of fortune that often decides titles and, in truth, he has benefited from several doses of in recent months.
On lap 13 Sutil finally got a run on the similarly Mercedes-powered Kovalainen coming out of 130R and went for it down the inside of the chicane, but the McLaren man kept his foot in and tried to hold his ground on the outside.
The inevitable collision was the result and as the Force India spun round and Kovalainen took to the asphalt run-off, the road was clear for Button to breeze through into eighth.
And while main title rival Barrichello was at this stage running in sight of fifth-placed Raikkonen, Button now had the chance to get himself back in contention for more points in the laps before his stop and immediately started lapping 1s faster than he had up until that point.
Meanwhile, second-placed Hamilton could have done with a similar surge in pace if he had ambitions to catch Vettel, the world champion the first of the front runners to pit on lap 15 when he was some 4.3s in arrears of the Red Bull.
After Trulli pitted a lap later to retake a comfortable third, the race leader was in himself on lap 18 – but while Red Bull’s stop was mistake free, Vettel nevertheless lost around two seconds as the lollipop man waited for BMW’s Heidfeld to come down the pit lane.
The small delay meant Vettel resumed with his lead reduced to 2.9s, but the lost time only seemed to spur the German star on and he quickly, and consistently, began to build a more comfortable advantage over Hamilton once more.
Hamilton in turn appeared to be less happy on the harder compound tyre and Trulli began to edge closer to him, the Italian getting the gap down to as little as 2.2s during the stint before Hamilton pulled it back to 3s.
With the McLaren driver having been told over the radio that he needed to keep at least 3s ahead of the slightly-heavier Toyota if he was to stay ahead of him through the their respective final stops, it looked set to be a close run thing as Lewis initiated the second round of fuel stops on lap 38.
All went like clockwork for the service itself, but as he flicked his pit limiter off as he crossed the white exit line his MP4-24 appeared to take more time than usual to get up to speed which cost crucial time.
The stuttering exit seemed to prove decisive as, while Trulli only pitted one lap later, the Italian re-emerged just ahead of Hamilton to set up Toyota’s best ever result on home ground.
With serene race leader Vettel enjoying a trouble-free final stop of his own to cement an almost certain race victory and 10-point haul, it remained unclear how many points he would travel to Interlagos behind Button with the Briton having spent the middle stint trying to improve on eighth.
Indeed it was the other Brawn of Barrichello who was the one struggling in the middle phase, the Brazilian having dropped like a stone from the increasingly fast Raikkonen after his first stop and into the clutches of Rosberg, Button and Kubica.
With the Brawns the first to pit – Button ending up right on the tail of Barrichello as the raced entered its final 10 laps – the only question now remaining unanswered was where Rosberg would filter back onto the track in relation to the pair, the Williams driver going longer on the fuel.
The answer would be ahead of both in fifth after he was able to make that stop under the safety car after it came out following a heavy crash for Alguersuari at 130R.
The Toro Rosso teenager appeared to put a wheel on the asphalt as he rounded the circuit’s fastest corner which put him into a wild spin across the track and saw him smashing through one of the foam advertising boards and into an impact with his second tyre barrier in successive days.
The scattered debris meant the safety car was called and, while the field lapped to the controlled time indicated on their dashboard as they prepared to form up behind the pace car, Rosberg took the opportunity to take his pit stop and re-emerged ahead of both Heidfeld and the two Brawns.
After a five-lap full-course yellow, the scene was set for some late order changes at the front but Vettel had simply been in a class of his own all day and reeled off the final four laps to take his fourth career win ahead of Trulli and Hamilton.
Raikkonen had closed onto Heidfeld’s tail with a rapid middle stint and got ahead when the BMW driver had a slow final stop, while Rosberg came home in a controversial fifth ahead of Heidfeld.
Button came under intense pressure from Kubica in the closing laps but held on for the final point, with Fernando Alonso and Kovalainen missing out on points in 10th and 11th.
Japanese Grand Prix result (53 laps)
1. VETTEL Red Bull 2. TRULLI Toyota +4.8s
3. HAMILTON McLareen +6.4s
4. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +7.9s
5. ROSBERG Williams +8.7s
6. HEIDFELD BMW +9.5s
7. BARRICHELLO Brawn +10.6s
8. BUTTON Brawn +11.4s
9. KUBICA BMW +11.7s
10. ALONSO Renault +13.0s
11. KOVALAINEN McLaren +13.7s
12. FISICHELLA Ferrari +14.5s
13. SUTIL Force India +14.9s
14. LIUZZI Force India +15.7s
15. NAKAJIMA Williams +17.9s
16. GROSJEAN Renault +1 lap
17. WEBBER Red Bull +1 lap
R. ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +8 laps
R. BUEMI Toro Rosso +27 laps
DNS.GLOCK Toyota
Fastest lap: WEBBER 1m32.569s (Lap 52)
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