Lewis Hamilton will take a five-point lead into the penultimate race of the Formula One world championship, after finishing outside the points in the Japanese Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso secured his second successive victory with a fine performance at Fuji.

The Renault driver, starting fourth on the grid, followed up his victory in Singapore with another win but a disastrous start for Hamilton meant the McLaren driver could only manage 12th. Hamilton's title rival Felipe Massa cut the gap at the top of the driver standings to five points after initially finishing eighth, before later being promoted to seventh after stewards penalised Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais.

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica claimed second place while Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen finished third.

Hamilton made a poor start, running off at the first corner, before colliding with Massa on lap two. Both were penalised during the race but Massa made the better recovery to cut Hamilton's lead to six points with two races left. Hamilton finished out of the points.

"What can I say? it was a bad day, I'll move on to next week [in China]," Hamilton said.

"I went wide at turn one, it was a mistake, and then Felipe hit me off, I went on the inside and he broke left and hit me pretty hard. I lost one point, which I guess is damage limitation."

"You can always look back and wish you'd done something differently. I made a mistake and I paid for it. That sort of thing happens, you've just got to keep your head up and keep going."

When asked about the drivers' championship, Hamilton insisted nothing had changed for the final two races in China and Brazil.

"I don't think it makes any difference," he said. "I lost one point today, which is damage limitation, and we'll move on to next week. We'll still be just as competitive, and we'll make sure we win the last two races. Not at any cost, but we plan on winning."

Hamilton led at turn one but was too quick into the first corner and dropped places as he ran wide. Then disaster struck for the 23-year-old a lap later, when he spun following contact with Massa and was forced to pit.

Kubica moved top of the field ahead of Alonso and Hamilton's team-mate Heikki Kovalainen by the fifth lap while Raikkonen, who had started the race second on the grid, had dropped to fifth by lap six. Toyota's Timo Glock returned to the pits in the following lap before retiring from the race.

Kubica remained at the front of the pack by lap ten with a gap of 1.8 seconds over Alonso while Massa was seventh and Hamilton 16th. Force India's Adrian Sutil, who had climbed to tenth from 19th, became another casualty of the race when he had to retire with a punctured tyre.