Hamilton wins, Mercedes win 2018 constructors' championship in Brazil!

Lewis Hamilton has won the Brazilian Grand Prix and Mercedes have won yet another constructors' championship, with the Silver Arrows mathematically eliminating Ferrari from the title battle.

The Silver Arrows have been the superior team for most of the season after struggling at the start, and have now secured their fifth constructors' championship in a row.

Hamilton lost his first position to Max Verstappen for a while but took it back after Max Verstappen spun out after colliding with backtracker Esteban Ocon, and the Brit was able to drive his Mercedes to another win for the team.

Verstappen did finish in second and Kimi Raikkonen finished third, with the Finn surviving some late pressure from the charging Daniel Ricciardo.

How it happened

The start was a very good one from a Mercedes perspective. Bottas immediately overtook Vettel for P2, meaning that Mercedes had the one-two after the first turn. Behind that, Max Verstappen overtook Kimi Raikkonen for P4 but the Finn came right back at him, re-taking what was his.

It didn't take Verstappen long to come back at him, though. Just a few laps after, he overtook Raikkonen, and Vettel was his next victim. Mercedes then tried an undercut on the 21-year-old, with both drivers coming in early and coming back out on medium tyres to end the race. But, Verstappen's excellent tyre management kept him in touching distance after pitting, with the Dutchman being just a little bit behind Hamilton after pitting.

He then made a move stick on the start/finish straight, overtaking Hamilton for the lead and instantly pulling away with 30 laps to go. All seemed well for the Dutchman, but then disaster struck.

Esteban Ocon as getting lapped but fought back at Verstappen in the Senna S, clipping the Red Bull and spinning both cars around. The Frenchman had no right of doing that and got a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, but Verstappen's race was ruined as Hamilton overtook him again and pulled away with a five-second gap. Verstappen even stuck out his middle finger to the Frenchman as he pulled away again, and the censoring machine was working overtime when the radio conversations between Verstappen and his race engineer got played back.

Verstappen fought back despite having a damaged floor and cut the gap to a second, but it wasn't enough to make it back-to-back wins for the first time in his career.

Daniel Ricciardo had a very good race outside of the podium. Despite starting outside of the top ten, the Aussie made quick work of driving himself into the top six and he even got as far up as P4, with Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari and Valtteri Bottas's Mercedes having to stop for a second time. The 29-year-old was close to ending on the podium, but Raikkonen fended off his attacks late-on.

It's the fifth straight constructors' championship for Mercedes, making it five out of five in the hybrid era. 49 wins in those five years as well. Emphatic.