Any conspiracy theorist who suggests Mercedes want Nico Rosberg, not Lewis Hamilton, to win the Formula One drivers’ title was given plenty of ammunition by the world champion himself here on Sunday.
Hamilton’s engine burst into flames at the start of lap 41 at the Malaysian Grand Prix as he was coasting towards the victory that would have enabled him to regain the championship lead from Rosberg. “No! No! No!” he screamed in frustration as he pulled off the track before burying his head in his hands.
There was plenty more when he had returned to the paddock and spoken to the TV cameras. “Someone doesn’t want me to win this year,” he said.
“We have so many engines made for drivers but mine are the only ones failing this year.
“Someone needs to give me some answers because this is not acceptable. I just can’t believe that there’s eight Mercedes cars and only my engines are the ones that have gone this way.
“Something just doesn’t feel right. It was a brand-new engine. It’s just odd. Only mine have gone.”
Mercedes supply engines not only to their own team but also to Williams, Force India and Manor.
There have been niggles but no one has suffered like Hamilton; for the fourth time this season his race was compromised by technical issues – and that is not counting the bad starts that have also plagued the Englishman this year.
Any suggestion Mercedes are nobbling the engine of their star driver is, of course, ludicrous. And, a little later and cooler, Hamilton was at pains to explain he was not pointing an accusing finger at his Mercedes hierarchy.
The British driver said: “When you get out the car, the feeling you have after leading the race and the car fails, it is pretty hard to say positive things all the time. We have had the most incredible success for these two years for which I am so grateful. These guys work so hard and we are all feeling the pain right now.”
So who was the “someone” who did not want him to win the championship, Hamilton was asked. “A higher power,” he said with a smile, looking slightly mystical.
“It feels right now that the man above, or a higher power, is intervening a little bit. I feel I have been blessed with the opportunity to be here with this great team around me, this great team, and lots of victories and records I am breaking time and time again. I have to feel grateful.
“If, at the end of the year, the higher power does not want me to be champion with everything I have given towards it, I will have to accept that.
“As long as I end my year knowing that I have given it everything, that is all I can ask for,” Hamilton said.