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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.

YouTube's Super Bowl commercial buzz list dominated by automakers [w/videos]

After Sunday's big game, YouTube will be the place to watch every commercial that you missed when you left your seat for an emergency guac refill or, as we say in Cleveland, took the Browns to the Super Bowl. That makes YouTube the nation's water cooler on Monday, and it's got some preliminary stats to share in the lead up to kickoff.
As you know, Super Bowl advertisers, particularly automakers, like to endlessly tease their big budget commercials in the weeks before the game, many times revealing them outright days in advance. Because of this, YouTube can tell us which commercials have been viewed the most so far, and their top five list is all automakers.
Kaley Cuoco appears to have been a good investment for Toyota, as her ad for the RAV4 has garnered the most YouTube views - six million and counting - among Super Bowl commercials so far. Second place goes to Mercedes-Benz, though not its actual Super Bowl commercial, but rather the teaser for it. You know, the one with Kate Upton and the car washing, which is up to 5.6 million views. Third place is Audi's Prom commercial (3.3M views), fourth goes to Volkswagen's slightly controversial Get In, Get Happy ad (3.3M views), and the fifth and final spot is bookended by the teaser video for Kaley Cuoco's commercial (3.2M views). You can watch all five in order below.

Sales start for $146,000 Mercedes-Benz S500 Plug In Hybrid

Mercedes-Benz's first production plug-in hybrid is chock full of astounding numbers, including the price tag. The base price is 108,944.50 euros, or about $146,000 US. If that didn't make your eyes glaze over, the Daimler division is ready to take your down payments now that the Mercedes-Benz S500 Plug-in Hybrid is officially on sale. Deliveries to European dealerships start in September. Details on the PHEV sedan were divulged last August and it was first shown off at last year's Frankfurt Motor Show. Benz calls it the, "first luxury saloon with the performance of a V8 and the fuel consumption of a compact model." That's no exaggeration. The car's powertrain that pairs a 3.0-liter V6 twin-turbo with an electric motor that delivers 436 horsepower and a 0-62 mile per hour acceleration time of just 5.2 seconds. Top speed is 155 miles an hour. On the green side, the car can go as far as almost 21 miles on electric power alone and gets a fuel-efficiency rating, on the more lenient European driving cycle, of 84 miles per gallon equivalent. The car also includes a so-called COMAND navigation system that tweaks how the electric motor is used based on the driver's desired route. Very high-tech. We've got Mercedes-Benz's press release below. Sales release for S 500 PLUG-IN HYBRID: First PLUG-IN HYBRID with a star starts With immediate effect the Mercedes-Benz S 500 PLUG-IN HYBRID can be ordered for prices from 108,944.50 euros[1]. The S 500 PLUG-IN HYBRID blends an ultramodern hybrid drive configuration with the unique innovations and the luxurious equipment and appointments of the S-Class. The luxury saloon with a long wheelbase impresses with unique dynamism and efficiency. Thanks to standard pre-entry climate control it also offers unique climate comfort. In September the first certified three-litre luxury saloon in the world will be arriving at the dealers - a further milestone on the road to emission-free mobility. "The new S 500 PLUG-IN HYBRID offers our customers the entire range of innovations that make our new S-Class so successful, and thanks to its intelligent operating strategy ensures outstanding driving pleasure and dynamism combined with the highest efficiency. Moreover, it allows completely emission-free driving for up to 33 km," says Ola Kallenius, Executive Vice-President for Sales at Mercedes-Benz Cars. "The S 500 PLUG-IN HYBRID is the first luxury saloon with the performance of a V8 and the fuel consumption of a compact model.