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FUJI - McLaren's Lewis Hamilton won a wet and wild Japanese Grand Prix this morning to take a huge stride towards becoming the first rookie to win the Formula One championship.
While the 22-year-old Briton splashed through the spray to chalk up his fourth victory in just 15 grands prix, his closest rival and double world champion team mate Fernando Alonso crashed out.
The result left Hamilton, Formula One's first black driver, in a position to clinch the championship in Shanghai next weekend.
After the first grand prix in 30 years at Toyota-owned Fuji, Hamilton now has a 12-point lead over Alonso with only the Chinese and Brazilian races remaining.
Renault rookie Heikki Kovalainen was second for his and the outgoing world champions' first appearance on the podium this year. He also led for three laps.
Fellow-Finn Kimi Raikkonen had a rollercoaster race, going from third place to last and then back to third again after Ferrari started him and Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa on the wrong tyres.
Hamilton has 107 points, Alonso 95 and Raikkonen 90. Massa is out of the title chase with 80.
The championship leader was fortunate to escape without damage from a collision with BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica on lap 34 that sent both off and dropped him briefly to fourth place.
"It was the longest race probably of my life. It just seemed to go on and on," said Hamilton, who led behind the safety car for the first 19 laps with drivers complaining about the impossible conditions.
At the end, as he neared the chequered flag after two hours of racing, it dawned on Hamilton just how close he also was to emulating his boyhood idol Ayrton Senna and the great French champion Alain Prost.
"Driving in the wet, leading and doing a last lap thinking of some of the races that Senna was in and Prost - it sort of made me feel that I'm on my way to achieving something similar to them," he said.
Alonso crashed 27 laps from the end while in fifth place after his car had been damaged in a collision with Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel.
"I really need a miracle to win (the title)," the Spaniard told reporters afterwards. "If the (last two) races are completely normal, it's over."
With debris strewn over the track and the wrecked McLaren left stranded, the safety car was again deployed.
Briton David Coulthard was fourth for Red Bull after Australian team mate Mark Webber and Vettel collided during that safety car period while in a stunning second and third place respectively.
Vettel, in only his sixth race, had led for three laps and was distraught with his error.
Italian Giancarlo Fisichella was fifth for Renault, Massa sixth, Kubica seventh and German rookie Adrian Sutil scored Spyker's first Formula One point in eighth.
Toro Rosso's Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi had crossed the line in the final scoring position but was penalised by stewards after it emerged that he had overtaken Sutil illegally.
Massa and Kubica provided the final sparks, battling side-by-side through the closing corners with each pushing the other wide before the Brazilian finally prevailed.
Both Ferrari drivers were forced to pit for a tyre change early on, with the team saying an email from the governing body ordering all cars to start with extreme wet tyres had not reached them in time.
While Ferrari's interest in the drivers' championship faded, with McLaren almost certain of their first title since Mika Hakkinen in 1999, they at least had the consolation of a constructors' title won off the track.
McLaren were stripped of all their points and fined US$100 million ($135.33 million) earlier this month for a spying controversy.
- REUTERS
