Nico Rosberg had the perfect weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix, he narrowly out qualified his team mate Lewis Hamilton and made the superior start, comfortably controlled the race and ultimately win. Hamilton has been on strong form all season but at times has looked distracted. The European Grand Prix was one such example and at the Japanese Grand Prix Hamilton had a falling out with the press. Hamilton enraged the gathered media during Thursdays pre-Grand Prix press conference by using a popular social media App, Snapchat. While coming across as unprofessional the media didn’t waste any time in crucifying Hamilton in writing. Hamilton was annoyed by the subsequent coverage, with some media outlets branding his antics as ‘snap-brat’, duly at a Mercedes F1 press conference Hamilton walked out unexpectedly saying he would no longer fully engage with the media. A distraction and lack of focus? Yes… maybe. On race day Hamilton made a poor start, one of many he has made all season, this dropped him from 2nd down to 8th position and for the remainder of the race he was playing catch up. He finished 3rd when he really needed to win in order to maintain some amount of pressure for his fading championship hopes. Hamilton has also had one DNF more than Rosberg, the last one being at Malaysia when he had all but wrapped up an easy victory only for his engine to give up a few laps from the end. Malaysia, and not Japan, may well be the pivotal point in the season that favourably swings in Rosberg’s favour. But Rosberg isn’t resting on the many laurels he has collected this season, 9 race victories compared to Hamilton’s 6, and the 33 point advantage he has in the drivers championship with 4 races remaining. With 100 points still up for grabs Hamilton statistically remains a threat to Rosberg’s quest for a first driver’s championship. Rosberg isn’t ruling out another determined comeback from Hamilton who has already made up a 43 point deficit from earlier on this season. Rosberg said of Hamilton “I have seen him extremely motivated and focused with the engineers… behind the scenes he has been as focused as ever. Because – especially after a setback like Malaysia – he was working the longest hours I have seen him work for many, many months trying to find those little bits of lap time.” “I don’t see Lewis’ media, I know what I’m doing on a race weekend and it’s about getting the best out of myself and not focusing on what Lewis’ state of mind is.” Said Rosberg. Hamilton’s main issues, apart from reliability, has been his apparent inability to master the clutch sequence at the start of the race. Team Principal Tot Wolff said “The clutch, obviously, is not perfect, We have tried to optimise that but our first assessment was that it didn’t function well on the clutch release.” Wolff added “It is a complex system to deploy and that didn’t function, it is difficult to handle the clutch in the right way. Both drivers have worked on that, going as far as changing the way the glove is weaved in order to release it – how the glove is sewn.” Will Hamilton be able to claw his way back from a 33 point deficit with four races remaining? If Rosberg suffers a DNF due to an engine or technical failure then yes. However statistically this season Hamilton has suffered more technical issues and who is to say he won’t suffer from another issue before the season is out.