ALL BUT DONE; Lewis Hamilton's Japanese Grand Prix nearly clinches the world championship.(Competition)

Byline: TONY DODGINS

Lewis Hamilton is within one race of becoming the first rookie world champion in Formula One history, after turning in a superb drive to win the Japanese Grand Prix at the revamped Fuji International Speedway.

F1 has visited Fuji just twice before, in the mid-'70s. The first time, 1976, was the dramatic world championship showdown between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, which the Englishman won when Lauda (just six weeks after a near-fatal crash at the Nurburgring) was forced to withdraw in appalling conditions. The scene on Saturday brought those memories flooding back for 64-year-old Daniele Audetto-Ferrari team manager then and Super Aguri team principal now. "The clouds and the mist brought it all back!'' he said.

So bad were the conditions that the medical helicopter was unable to take off, so Saturday morning practice was delayed and then abandoned. The drivers thus had their first wet-weather experience of the revamped Fuji in qualifying.

Rain usually turns an F1 grid on its head, but there was no interrupting the intensity of the world championship battle as warring McLaren-Mercedes teammates Hamilton and Fernando Alonso locked out the front row of the grid ahead of the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. Nick Heidfeld's BMW-Sauber again took "best of the rest'' honors to lead the third row, ahead of another strong qualifying performance from Nico Rosberg in the Williams-Toyota.

Race day was equally bleak, and the race was started behind the safety car, with the official Mercedes circulating at the head of the pack for 40 minutes and 19 laps before the drivers were turned loose. Many thought conditions were still too bad, but nothing fazed Hamilton, who immediately opened a three-second cushion over Alonso. Farther back, wet-weather ace Jenson Button, looking forward to conditions that equalized the woeful performance of his recalcitrant Honda, tangled with Heidfeld's BMW.

Mark Webber and 20-year-old German Sebastian Vettel took advantage for Red Bull and Toro Rosso, respectively. They benefited further when the Ferraris, both of which started on wet (rather than extreme-wet) Bridgestone tires, made early pit stops. An hour before the start, stewards e-mailed the teams with the instruction that all drivers had to start on extreme-wet treads; if they did not, they could be flagged to the pits if considered a danger. When Massa spun behind the safety car on lap two, Ferrari brought both in to change boots.