SUZUKA: Championship leader Lewis Hamilton won a rain-shortened Japanese Grand Prix from Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg on Sunday in a chaotic finish, but his victory was overshadowed by a serious crash involving young Frenchman Jules Bianchi.

The race started behind the safety car due to heavy rain and ended without celebration after Marussia’s Bianchi was taken to hospital to undergo emergency surgery for a serious head injury.

“Jules is seriously injured,” Bianchi’s father Philippe told France 3 television. “He is undergoing surgery for a head injury and we will need to wait 24 hours to know any more on his condition.”

A spokesman for the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) added: “The driver is not conscious and has been sent to the hospital by the ambulance because the helicopter cannot go in these conditions.”

With Hamilton leading Ros­berg, a red flag ended the race on the 44th of 53 laps due to the crash. With heavy rain falling and visibility poor, race officials elected not to re-start and Hamil­ton was declared the winner.

Germany’s quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, who is leaving Red Bull for Ferrari at the end of the season, took third place.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who would otherwise have been on the podium, was fourth for Red Bull ahead of McLaren driver Jenson Button.

Williams pair Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa started third and fourth, but both struggled badly in wet conditions and trailed home sixth and seventh.

Germany’s Nico Hulkenberg was eighth for Force India, with Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne ninth for Toro Rosso and Mexican Sergio Perez 10th for Force India.

The drivers tense faces as they waited to step on the podium told the true story of the afternoon, with Bianchi foremost in their thoughts.

No champagne was sprayed, with the top three merely clinking the bottles and taking a quiet swig before placing them back on the floor.

“Our first thoughts go to Jules,” Hamilton, who now leads Rosberg by 10 points with four races remaining, said. “It overshadows everything else when one of our colleagues is injured and we are praying for him. Next to this, the race result doesn’t seem significant at all.”

The victory was Hamilton’s eighth of the season but first at Suzuka. The 2008 champion’s only other win in Japan was at the Fuji circuit with McLaren in 2007.

The race started as scheduled but behind the safety car due to rain from an approaching typhoon that threatened to intensify through the evening.

The cars completed one lap and were then led back into the pit lane to await a re-start.

“Lewis is saying the conditions are so poor he cannot see you,” Rosberg’s race engineer told the German as the two Mercedes threaded their way carefully around the circuit.

When the race resumed, again behind the safety car, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was an immediate casualty with his car gliding to a halt.

“It was a shame. I had power down in the car, an electricity problem and the car switched off. Maybe some water in some connectors,” said the Spaniard, whose future remains unclear after Vettel’s announcement. “Probably we lost an opportunity today.”

When the safety car came in after eight laps, the battle was on with Hamilton chasing Rosberg in the spray and passing him in a breathtaking moment of bravery on lap 29 after their first pitstops.

The Briton was 16 seconds clear of the German when the race was stopped, the margin later reduced to 9.160 in the final results.

The safety car came out again after 44 laps following Bianchi’s accident — the Frenchman’s Marussia colliding with a recovery vehicle after German Adrian Sutil smashed his Sauber into a wall — and the race was suspended two laps later with the rain getting heavier and the light rapidly deteriorating.

Sutil witnessed Bianchi’s crash at close quarters after sliding out at the same bend.

“I had aquaplaning at that corner,” he said. “The rain got worse and worse, the visibility got less and less. One lap later, Jules came around and had the same spin there, and that was it. It was more or less the same crash, but the outcome was different.”

It wasn’t the first time rain affected the race at Suzuka. In 2004, Saturday’s qualifying session was postponed until race day after torrential rain hit the area.

The next stop on the Formula One calendar is the inaugural Russian GP on Oct 12, in Sochi, the Black Sea resort that hosted this year’s Winter Olympics.

Beginning this year, a win at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Nov 23 will be worth 50 points instead of the normal 25 in the hopes of adding more suspense to the season’s finale.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2014