The Japanese Grand Prix saw two drives worthy of someone aiming to win the drivers championship. Unfortunately neither of those came from the two men at the top of the table.

As in 2007, Lewis Hamilton again demonstrated that when the pressure is really on he crumbles. He handles the pressure of expectation with composure that belies his age but the pressure of scrapping for points and places in the last stages of a season seems to reduce him to embarrassing mistakes unworthy of his prodigious talent.

Perhaps this is the result of his insertion into a race-winning seat from his very first Formula 1 race. By contrast, Kubica (more of whom later), Alonso, Vettel, and Senna before them, had to learn their craft in cars with no chance of challenging for titles; BMW, Minardi, Toro Rosso (and debut race in BMW) and Toleman respectively. This made them more complete drivers because it taught them the art of keeping your nose clean in the hard fight of a midfield pack jostling for position in the frantic run down to turn 1. The other equally valuable lessons they will have learnt from those early races is to recognise when to accept the points available and that old cliché, that you can't win a race in the first corner but you certainly can lose it.

Hamilton has also demonstrated an unattractive willingness to go to any length to win a race, including intimidating his rivals off the road. And I say this as someone who was a fan of Ayrton Senna as a boy and latterly of Michael Schumacher. It was unattractive in them and it is unattractive in Hamilton. Intimidation also only works until that moment when you encounter a driver who won't back off. Senna got away with it until neither he nor Prost were willing to back down and one can only speculate at how colossal the accident would have been had he and Schumacher encountered one another as young men in their prime. Hamilton is in for a shock the day he tries the move he tried on Raikkonen on Kubica.

It was amazing to hear the tortured logic employed by both Hamilton and his new apologists-in-chief at BBC 5-Live's Chequered Flag Formula 1 podcast to justify why his offence against Raikkonen was somehow less serious than that committed by Massa. The logic running along the lines that because Lewis hadn't hit anyone it was harsh to penalise him in the same way as Felipe, who had. Felipe's move on Hamilton was one of the most cynical things I have seen in Formula 1 in a long while but the only reason Hamilton didn't hit Raikkonen was because Kimi decided that he didn't want to have an accident at over 100 mph.

Massa too disappointed at Fuji. Just when I thought Michael Schumacher's tutelage had smoothed off the rough edges of Massa's raw speed he lost his head, and as well as his clumsy move on Hamilton he also managed to hit Bourdais, who can feel rightly aggrieved to have been penalised for an accident which was in no way his fault. How sad that the message boards have not lit up in sympathy with the Toro Rosso driver in the same way as they did for Hamilton after Belgium. A very unscientific straw pole of the Formula 1 fans I know shows unanimous bewilderment at the decision, even amongst Ferrari fans.