Lewis Hamilton claimed an eighth victory of the 2017 season in Japan as he asserted his dominance on the championship on a day when chief rival Sebastian Vettel failed to score due to yet more reliability problems for Ferrari.
The Mercedes driver now holds a 59-point lead over second-placed Vettel, with Hamilton having scored 68 points in the last three races compared to Vettel's 12.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished second ahead of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, who completed the podium.
The race start saw concern in the Ferrari camp as Vettel reported an issue on his way to the grid and his mechanics quickly got to work to resolve the problem. However the German, who started second, lost out to Verstappen at the start and then fell back further as it became obvious the issue hadn't been resolved on the grid.
Vettel retired on the second lap of the race, all but putting an end to his hopes of a fifth title and a first with Ferrari.
Team-mate Kimi Räikkönen also lost out at the start and dropp back to 14th before recovering to finish fifth behind the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, who finished just 0.9s off Ricciardo.
Esteban Ocon was sixth, but ran as high as third throughout the opening laps before falling back down the order to finish just ahead of his Force India team-mate Sergio Perez who, during the race, asked several times if he could attack the Frenchman, with each reply a very blunt "no".
Haas secured only their second double-points finish with Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean in eighth and ninth respectively.
Felipe Massa completed the top ten after an intense battle with McLaren's Fernando Alonso in the closing laps – one which cost fans a thrilling final lap as Hamilton and Verstappen – split by less than half a second – came up to lap the pair, which allowed Hamilton to remain in the lead until the chequered flag.
There were several non-finishers as Lance Stroll suffered a tyre failure, Nico Hülkenberg a DRS failure, whilst Marcus Ericsson and Carlos Sainz both crashed out.
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