MOTORSPORT: High five for Silver Arrows

Mercedes is the constructors' world champion for the fifth straight year in Formula 1's hybrid era, while Red Bull is fuming at being robbed of victory in today's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen got physical with Esteban Ocon after the race in São Paulo, shoving the Frenchman several times, while Red Bull's motorsport supremo Helmut Marko claimed the lapped Ocon had deliberately lunged into race leader Verstappen to enhance his chances of a Mercedes factory team drive in 2020.

Verstappen recovered from the spin after the contact from Ocon's Mercedes-powered Force India car to finish a close second with his wounded Red Bull-Renault to Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes.

Daniel Ricciardo came from 11th on the grid — courtesy of a penalty for a turbocharger change — to fourth, his best result in Brazil, in his penultimate race for Red Bull.

"That was fun, but quite frustrating ... the podium was so close. We had a very fast car," carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo said.

"It gives us optimism for Abu Dhabi [the season finale on November 25, before his switch to Renault's factory team next year]."

Apart from Mercedes' dominance of the five years of this this hybrid era, Hamilton has now won 50 of 99 GPs run with these incredibly complex 1.6-litre cars.

Today was also the first time that the five-time champion has won a race in a season after clinching the drivers' title.

He's now won 10 of the 20 races this year to none by teammate Valtteri Bottas, although the Finn handed him the one in Russia under team orders.

Mercedes is now just one constructors' title short of Ferrari's record six straight from 1999 to 2004 in Michael Schumacher's heyday.

But while Ferrari has been Mercedes' main challenger in the hybrid era, today Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were third and sixth as Red Bull with under-powered Renault engines came closest to toppling the Silver Arrows - and might well have if not for the Ocon contact on Verstappen.

Hamilton had the luxury of saying, with a slight smirk, that he may have left a little more room than Verstappen after overtaking Ocon.

Red Bull is confident after its recent form — including four straight podiums by Verstappen, with a victory in Mexico two weeks ago — that it will be a serious world championship contender again next year when it switches to Honda power.

It claims Honda's progress with the secondary Red Bull team Toro Rosso this year augurs well for a return to something like the super-competitiveness it enjoyed at the end of the last V8 era, when it won four straight constructor titles.