Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen were eliminated from Formula 1 championship contention following the Japanese Grand Prix.
Entering the Japanese Grand Prix, the 17th race on the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 schedule, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas and Scuderia Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen both still had slight chances to win the 2018 driver championship.
Bottas sat in third place in the driver standings with 189 points while Raikkonen sat in fourth in the standings with 186 points. Bottas trailed teammate Lewis Hamilton, who led the standings with 306 points, by 117 points while Raikkonen trialed him by 120 points.
With five races remaining on the 2018 schedule at this point, a maximum of 125 points were on the table for each driver through the remainder of the season, as race victories are worth 25 points. This meant that with four races remaining on the schedule, a maximum of 100 points would be on the table for each driver.
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However, instead of needing to remain within 100 points of Hamilton to remain mathematically eligible to win the driver championship, Bottas and Raikkonen needed to remain within 99 points of him.
This was the case because of the fact that neither driver could possibly win a tiebreaker over Hamilton. The 33-year-old Briton entered the race with eight victories through the season’s first 16 seasons, whereas the two Finns entered it with a combined zero victories through these races.
This meant that with five races left on the schedule, there was no way by which either Bottas or Raikkonen could pass or even come close to tying Hamilton’s win total.
Bottas ended up finishing the 53-lap race around the 18-turn, 3.609-mile (5.807-kilometer) Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, Japan in second place. As a result, he scored 18 points. Raikkonen ended up finishing it in fifth. As a result, he scored 10 points.
Hamilton, meanwhile, led every lap of the race en route to his ninth victory of the season, which resulted in him scoring 25 more points. As a result, he now has 331 points and leads Bottas, who has 207 points, by 124 points in the driver standings, and Raikkonen, who has 196 points, by 135 points in the standings, meaning that both Finns have been mathematically eliminated from championship contention.
Aside of Hamilton, the only driver who is still eligible to win this year’s driver championship is Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. The 31-year-old German trails Hamilton by 67 points in the standings, so even his odds of winning the title are slim to none.
The 2018 Formula 1 driver championship is officially down to four-time champions Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. Will Hamilton clinch the championship in the next race or will Vettel stay mathematically in the hunt? Be sure to tune in to the next race, the United States Grand Prix, on Sunday, October 21 to find out. It is set to be broadcast live from Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas beginning at 2:10 p.m. ET.