Lewis Hamilton questioned his Mercedes team after he was forced to retire from the lead of Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix with an engine failure, saying "something doesn't seem right" with all his reliability troubles this season.
Hamilton looked to be cruising to his first win since July when flames exploded from the rear of his car, forcing him to pull over and retire 16 laps from the end. The world champion suffered a spate of power unit failures at the start of the year and served a hefty grid penalty in Belgium as Mercedes stockpiled three fresh engines in an attempt to insure against failures such as Sunday's.
However, one of those new engines failed dramatically in Sepang, leaving him a massive 23 points behind Rosberg in the championship.
When asked where he goes from here, a dejected Hamilton said: "I've just to move on. The guys did a fantastic job this weekend, we did everything we could. I did everything I could. I just can't believe that there's eight Mercedes cars and only my engines that have been going this year. Something just doesn't feel right. There's nothing I can do about it."
When asked what he meant by his final comment, he just repeated: "Something just doesn't feel right."
Speaking to the BBC, Hamilton said: "My questions are to Mercedes -- we have lost so many engines .... Someone has to give me some answers and it is not acceptable. Something or someone doesn't want me to win this year."
Hamilton's engine failure handed a one-two finish to Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, but cost Mercedes the chance to wrap up the constructors' championship. Hamilton had been building a big gap to the Red Bull pair before his retirement but insisted he was not pushing the limits of the engine.
"No, it's a brand new engine. I've done one race with it. I did P3 with it and qualifying, it's a brand new engine out of the new three that I had.
"It is what it is and we'll just move forwards and try to continue to drive as we have this weekend but it's just odd. There's been 43 engines from Mercedes and only mine have gone."