All smiles from Hamilton.

The look on Rosberg's face says it all, he looks like a man well and truly beaten for the world. championship. It will take something pretty seismic for Hamilton not to claim a third title from here.

Vettel's good form continues with third. The world championship looks a step too far but it looks like Rosberg's second position could be there for the taking if Ferrari can have a strong finish to the season.

Lap 53

Hamilton starts the final lap of the race and finally the FOM cameras show us the Mercedes man out in front.

Lewis Hamilton wins the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix and pumps his firsts with joy. A huge step in his quest for a third world championship.

Rosberg finishes second, Vettel third, in a repeat of last year's podium here. Raikkonen fourth after a good drive, Bottas fifth, Hulkenberg sixth. Grosjean, Maldonado, Verstappen and Sainz round out the points finishes. Everyone else is a lap down and won't complete this lap.

"Fantastic job guys!" Hamilton says. "Absolutely flawless again, as always. Great job."

"Not more that I could have done in that lap, sorry," Vettel tells Ferrari, referring to his in-lap which saw Rosberg undercut him. Was the difference between second and third.

This win, of course, moves Hamilton level on career victories with childhood idol Senna.

Lap 52

Hamilton leads by 17 seconds on the penultimate lap.

Honda will be crossing their fingers for a retirement from the top ten as Alonso is 11th. I doubt a point will calm the Spaniard down after the radio messages we've heard today.

Nasr trudges down the pit lane after retiring, the first DNF of the day.

Lap 51

Replays of that moment again show Ericsson slowing on the outside of the chicane and Kvyat does very well to follow the Ferrari's gearbox down the inside of the corner.

Sauber will be frustrated with that one. Let him through down the start/finish straight.

Lap 50

...He doesn't but he gets a stab of DRS down the pit straight. He has a look into Turn 1 as Ericsson runs a little wide.

"Fight the Red Bulls!" Sauber tells Ericsson. He's all over the track at the moment.

Kvyat has a look into Degner 1... no joy. Red Bull struggling.

The battle subsides for a second as they let Raikkonen through with blue flags waving.

Replays show Ericsson running wide at Spoon, where he's looked pretty shaky all weekend, and Perez needed no second invitation.

As Ericsson moves over to let Raikkonen through Kvyat takes full advantage and takes the position through the chicane! Not a great place for Ericsson to let Raikkonen through and its cost him dearly.

Lap 49

Hamilton has 16.4s advantage with five laps left.

Sahil says: "The race just keeps getting boring, but thanks to your commentry its better."

We do our best.

"Right. It's going to get tasty ahead," Red Bull tells Ricciardo who, in all of this, has moved into the position behind Kvyat.

And while he gets that message Perez passes Ericsson on the inside of Spoon and makes the move stick on the run down to 130R. Kvyat has a think about passing Ericsson at the chicane...