(AP) — Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won a rain-shortened Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, claiming his third straight Formula One victory in a race marred by a serious crash.

With Hamilton leading teammate Nico Rosberg, a red flag ended the race on the 44th of 53 laps due to a crash involving Marussia driver Jules Bianchi. With heavy rain falling and visibility poor, race officials elected not to re-start and Hamilton was declared the winner. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel finished third.

Hamilton widened his lead over Rosberg in the race for the drivers' championship but the race celebrations were subdued as Bianchi was taken to a hospital and is in critical condition.

"Our first thoughts go to Jules," Hamilton said. "It overshadows everything else when one of our colleagues is injured and we are praying for him. Next to this, the race result doesn't seem significant at all."

Hamilton now leads Rosberg by 10 points with four races remaining.

The rain also disrupted the early stages of the race, with the first nine laps run behind the safety car. After the rain abated and the safety car came off, Hamilton did everything possible to gain on his teammate, who started from pole.

Rosberg held the lead until the 29th lap when Hamilton got a better run onto the pit straight and blasted around the outside of Rosberg into Turn 1 to take the lead for good.

The race was stopped after 44 laps after Bianchi crashed at Turn 7. He was taken to a hospital and is undergoing surgery after a scan revealed a severe head injury, FIA spokesman Matteo Bonciani said.

Sunday's race started at 3 p.m. local time. An approaching typhoon led to suggestions that the race should be pushed up to an earlier start but it wasn't.

At the time of the crash, rain was falling steadily and it was getting dark. Several drivers complained of not being able to see properly.

At the start of the race the rain became heavier and the drivers could only complete two cautious laps behind the safety car.

After a 10-minute delay, the race re-started behind the safety car, but Fernando Alonso's Ferrari ground to a halt with a technical problem. The Spaniard returned to his garage and threw up his arms in frustration.

Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo, who is a distant third in the drivers' standings, finished fourth ahead of McLaren driver Jenson Button.

Williams pair Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa started third and fourth, but both struggled badly in wet conditions and trailed home sixth and seventh.

It wasn't the first time rain affected the race at Suzuka. In 2004, Saturday's qualifying session was postponed until race day after torrential rain hit the area.

The next stop on the Formula One calendar is the inaugural Russian GP on Oct. 12, in Sochi, the Black Sea resort that hosted this year's Winter Olympics.

Beginning this year, a win at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Nov. 23 will be worth 50 points instead of the normal 25 in the hopes of adding more suspense to the season's finale.

 (AP) — For Nico Rosberg, early retirement from the Singapore Grand Prix was painful. Seeing his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton win the race and snatch back the championship lead was agonizing.

Hamilton won his seventh race of the season Sunday to move to 241 points, ahead of Rosberg on 238 with five races left. The advantage is thin but the Briton carries all the momentum after back-to-back victories and Rosberg's hopes of his first F1 title are diminishing.

Hamilton started from pole position and led comfortably for much of the race but was forced into a late pit-stop, briefly giving up the race lead to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, before he passed the German seven laps from the finish to win by 13.5 seconds at the Marina Bay circuit.

Rosberg was forced to start from pit-lane due to a failure on the installation lap, and he did 14 laps at the back of the field in the stricken car before retiring. The team identified a problem in the steering column, which prevented full usage of the steering wheel, affecting gear selection and preventing use of stored battery power.

"I came here hoping to gain seven points (on Rosberg) and thinking anything more than that is a bonus," Hamilton said. "Those extra points are a huge help.

"This is game time. This is about hunting. In my head, I don't think I am leading the championship. There are still five races left and all I'm going to do is what I've done in the last two races which is just attack every session."

Though Rosberg tried everything to get the car into working mode, he knew from the moment the car failed to start on the warm-up lap that it was hopeless.

"''It was a horrible feeling to see everyone go because then I knew it was over," Rosberg said.

"There was just no point in continuing. So a tough day really."

Vettel, who temporarily looked like winning Singapore for the fourth-straight year, finished second, just holding off Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who moved to 60 points off the championship lead. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was fourth. Second to fourth places were separated by just 1.8 seconds.

Williams' driver Felipe Massa was fifth, ahead of fast-finishing Toro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne. Seventh through 10th places were fought out right until the final corner, with Sergio Perez of Force India seventh and his teammate Nico Hulkenberg ninth, while Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was eighth and McLaren's Kevin Magnussen 10th.

Valtteri Bottas of Williams was seventh on the penultimate lap but ended up out of the points in 11th in a chaotic finish among the lower end of the points-yielding places.

Hamilton had built a six-second lead over Alonso when the safety car emerged on lap 31 following a crash between Perez and Sauber's Adrian Sutil.

Alonso pitted immediately onto the harder tire, putting him on the same rubber as Vettel and Ricciardo, and the lengthy six-lap safety-car period meant they switched strategy and decided to run to the end on those tires.

Hamilton, however, had to make another pit-stop as he had not yet used the harder tire, so once the safety car came in he set about building his lead, trying to get it out to 27 seconds to enable him to pit and still emerge in front.

Though his tires did not have quite enough life to do that — getting his lead out to just over 25 seconds — he emerged from his stop behind Vettel, whose tires were very worn. The German was a sitting duck and Hamilton swept past easily to reclaim the lead.

"The safety-car came at the worst possible time for us," Vettel said. "There was a lot of pressure from Dan and Fernando behind, so I am very happy to make it to P2 (second)."

Ricciardo was right on the back of Vettel in the closing stages, with marginally fresher tires, but was not able to make a passing attempt. However, he did stay ahead of Alonso, who was on the newest tires of the trio.