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2016 Japanese Grand Prix | Hamilton faces the beginning of the end

We're told the Japanese mamushi viper haunts the undergrowth around Suzuka. If the pit viper attended the weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, it avoided human visitors but it put a nasty bite on Lewis Hamilton's championship hopes. The Briton, lined up second on the grid next to Mercedes-AMG Petronas teammate Nico Rosberg, flubbed his start. By the end of Turn 1 Hamilton was in eighth. Hamilton didn't suffer alone. The beginning of the race was a melee; many of the leaders got caught out either by the damp track or by having to swerve around slow starters. Only Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Red Bull's Max Verstappen took off clean. The German rolled up another lights-to-flag victory despite the pass-happy race happening behind him. Rosberg was as unbothered by the Dutchman in second place as he was by the official Formula 1 camera feed. Verstappen didn't have much work to do until the final ten laps of the race. Thanks to the Mercedes team's strategy – or Ferrari waiting too long to pit – Hamilton got up to third on Lap 36 of 53. Unable to make a DRS-enabled pass on Verstappen down the front straight toward the end of the race, the Mercedes driver took a creative line through Spoon corner. Closing in down the back straight, Hamilton jinked inside to try a pass through the final chicane. Verstappen moved over in the braking zone while Hamilton was still behind him, closing the door on the move. Hamilton protested over his team radio, but seemed resigned to a third place finish after the incident – he didn't try any more passes in the final laps. The Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen crossed the line fourth and fifth, respectively, in recovery drives after penalties. The scuderia tried an aggressive final stint after Hamilton successfully undercut Vettel in the pits. Ferrari put Vettel on the soft-compound Pirellis so he could hunt the Mercedes, but after a few laps of close pursuit the tires gave up and Vettel fell back. Daniel Ricciardo couldn't get comfortable in his Red Bull the entire weekend. The Aussie finished where he started, in sixth place. Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg followed the Red Bull home in two-up formation for Force India, Williams doing the same in the final two points-paying positions with Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas. Rosberg's 23rd career victory – his ninth of the season and first ever in Japan – puts him 33 points ahead of Hamilton in the Driver's Championship with four races left.

McLaren teases new Sports Series in development

Hot on the heels of confirming its upcoming "entry-level" model, McLaren has released a solitary teaser image of that new vehicle undergoing testing. Known until now as the P13, the McLaren Sports Series is set to take on the likes of the Audi R8 and Porsche 911 GT3. Like the rest of the F1-team-turned-supercar-manufacturer's lineup, it'll be built around a carbon monocoque with a V8 engine mounted amidships – widely expected to be a detuned version of the 3.8-liter twin-turbo unit that has already found its home in the 12C, 650S and P1, mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Although the teaser image above only shows part of the car, and is wearing all manner of camouflage, it definitely looks like a modern McLaren. You can see the telltale swoosh-shaped LED headlights peering from behind the mesh cladding and ten-spoke alloys spinning away, with wing mirrors mounted to the doors (like on the P1) instead of the window frame (like the 650S). Beyond that there's not much to tell at this point, but you can see that the cockpit will (at least initially) feature a two-seat layout and not the 2+2 arrangement that could still follow – or, for that matter, the 1+2 central driving position of the legendary McLaren F1, an arrangement Woking ruled out for its modern fleet of supercars due to practical considerations like toll booths and parking gates. News Source: McLaren via Facebook McLaren Coupe Supercars mclaren sports series mclaren p13

Volkswagen Group names Paefgen head of classics program

You may remember the name Franz-Josef Paefgen. Until recently, the German engineer and executive was head of both Bentley and Bugatti. Before that he was chief executive of Audi, after working for several years at Ford. He technically "retired" earlier this year, but like the cars he helped create, an executive like Paefgen could never really retire. So it should come as little surprise that the Volkswagen Group has named Dr. Paefgen head of its Classic program.
In his new capacity, Paefgen will oversee the historic automobile activities of the entire VW Group, including those of Volkswagen, Seat, Skoda, Audi, Lamborghini, and of course Bentley and Bugatti. It strikes us as a suitable semi-retirement for the man responsible in no small part for the Bugatti Veyron and Bentley Mulsanne, to name just two, and who was decorated in 2006 by the ACO as the "Spirit of Le Mans" for his contribution to endurance racing. Read the official announcement after the break.