Niki Lauda has apologised to Lewis Hamilton for his dramatic engine failure in Malaysia and insisted Mercedes "certaintly do nothing against him" after the world champion's explosive comments to the media.
Hamilton's hopes of a fourth world championship were dealt a major blow in Sepang as his engine went up in a ball of flames 16 laps from the end, giving Nico Rosberg a 23-point lead with five races to go. The Englishman has suffered a spate of engine failures this season and after the race questioned Mercedes, saying "someone doesn't want me to win" in the TV pen.
When asked how he reacted to Hamilton's comments Lauda, the team's non-executive chairman, replied: "I'm really upset about myself and my organisation because we shouldn't let him down with an engine failure. Engine failures can happen but we have to analyse more carefully what went wrong.
"It was a fairly new engine, so it was not something old we put in his car, so we did everything possible to make him finish all the races. What went wrong? I do not know, we will find out and correct it. I feel personally very sorry about him and these things can happen."
Lauda is certain he can convince Hamilton there is no hidden agenda to deny him the world championship.
"I can convince him and say certainly we do nothing against him. We are people working for him, we are proud of him and these things happen.
"From our point of view we do everything possible that he finishes the race and he has finished so many races, he won already two championships so on this side we are well balanced. Unfortunate that it happened to him, I will apologise and then we have to keep on going."
The Austrian thinks he can lift Hamilton's spirits in the short turnaround before the Japanese Grand Prix in seven days' time.
"I take him to Japan tomorrow morning in my plane and then I hope I can bring him up because the championship is over when the last race is over. So 23 points is a lot he has to gain but you never know what happens to the other guy."