Hamilton says “something just doesn’t feel right” after latest engine failure

2016 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton says something “doesn’t feel right” about his continued power unit problems in 2016 after an engine failure put him out of the Malaysian Grand Prix while he was leading.

Despite the failure he complimented his team on their efforts in Malaysia. “The guys did a fantastic job this weekend,” he told reporters. “We did everything we could, I did everything I could.”

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“I just can’t believe that there’s eight Mercedes [powered] cars and only my engines have been going this year. Something just doesn’t feel right. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Hamilton said he wasn’t pushing his engine hard, although Mercedes did intend for him to make another pit stop. “It was a brand new engine,” he said, “I’ve done one race with it.”

“I did, I think, P3 with it and qualifying. It was a brand new engine out of that new three that I have. It is what it is, we just move forwards and try to continue to drive as we have this weekend.”

“But it’s just odd. There’s been 43 engines for Mercedes and only mine have gone.”

Hamilton is now 23 points behind Nico Rosberg in the championship and is doubtful over his chances in the remaining races.

“Right now I don’t even know if my car’s going to make it these next five races,” he said. “I know that we’ve got it in us, my engineers, my mechanics, I know we’ve got it in us. But who knows, those next engines I have, what they’re going to do.”

“I’m just going to keep my head down and hope for the best but obviously today was really not a good day.”

“Someone has to give me some answers and it is not acceptable,” he added in an interview with the BBC. “Something or someone doesn’t want me to win this year.

2016 Malaysian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    304 comments on “Hamilton says “something just doesn’t feel right” after latest engine failure”

    1. He took TWO not one relative easy championships with team that he now calls “saboteurs” with his comments.He had only his team mate to beat and nobody else was even close. When his contract expires? I would give him the boot right now for those comments or move him to Manor.

      1. I agree. I know he had an engine failiure but these are ridiculous accusations from him. Like Maldonado a few years back

        1. i would love to hear about these ridiculous accusations hes been making. Care to share?

      2. And if they are sabotaging his engines this year? He should be thankful to them anyway, for the last 2 years?

          1. Notice how I’ve put an IF in my question. Are you so naive to claim ‘they aren’t’ with so much certainty without any involvement in Mercedes operations?

            1. @ivan-vinitskyy You’re naive to consider the possibility.

            2. I suspect they would rather save a few millions and hire Maldonado, than pay Hamilton twice what they pay Rosberg to then sabotage his chances.

              They pay him because they want the performance, obviously.

              In my view, it would require a more stupid kind of people than that calling the shots at an F1 team to think that sabotaging Hamilton would be a great idea…

            3. Mercedes know they have the car (when its running fine) that can win with any of the 50% of current F1 drivers. They want Hamilton because of his following, marketability. Of course you also need to be fast to be at the front. Nobody would be in F1 winning if they didn’t make money in the process so stop saying they only want Ham for his speed.

              As for sabotaging itself… McLaren thought it would be a good idea to use Ferrari tech docs in 2007. Briatore thought it was smart to crash a car to win a race. Besides I didn’t say the top mgmt are on it. It could just be 3 or 4 ppl doing a particular part of the software, procedure, development.

            4. @ivan-vinitskyy
              … Both the examples you gave had logical but unethical reasons, the data was to improve the cars performance and the crash was to give Alonso an advantage.

              The idea that Mercedes purposely and repeatedly sabotaged their own cars because they don’t want Lewis to win is absolutely farcical.

            5. In 2007 Mclaren used the tech data only to file a claim with the FIA for an illegal movable surface they discovered on the Ferrari car (oh how ironic). They also had some strategy data for specific races that Ferrari were to use. But Ferrari tech was never used on their cars.

            6. Sorry. Thanks for correcting me.

            7. The Blade Runner (@)
              3rd October 2016, 8:50

              Mercedes are in F1 for marketing purposes. Success = car sales.

              Why on earth would they conspire to cause one of their (new) engines to fail so publicly?

              Lewis has been incredibly unlucky this year that’s for sure. To suggest that there is some kind of conspiracy against him though seems ridiculously far-fetched.

      3. You have to give Hamilton a break. He was interviewed just moments of the incident and he’s emotions were still running high. Of course he is extremely disappointed and trying to rationalize the bad luck he just experienced. Just was not Hamilton’s nor Mercedes’ day.

        1. Still… it’s his 10th year in F1 = no excuses!

          1. How many years has Alonso been in F1? GP2 ENGINE………….GP2 AHHH

            1. Yes, but then engine was actually slow. Sure it’s hyperbole and unprofessional but it’s far from being anything like saying that you are being sabotaged.

            2. Exactly @blackbox @foreverred. People look too much into Hamilton’s words because they are bored of Mercedes domination.

          2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
            2nd October 2016, 16:02

            @corrado-dub

            He’s superb! So many championships won – I count 7 WDCs he has won. The stats don’t show his ability.

            He might actually lose the WDC after winning it twice this year!

        2. And I can’t see him talking about sabotage in that particular interview @blackbox , for me he just said the obvious, his engine is the only one failing and I think he was talking about bad luck and not sabotage like @dex022 infers.

          I too think “something doesn’t feel right”…

          1. Sorry about the typo

          2. You have to remember Hamilton has Rosberg’s old engine crew for this year. Its natural that some of them will have mixed loyalties. Then there’s the fact that Mecedes as a German company would benifit from a German Champion.

            Hamilton as the professional he is, will want to know when he places his trust in the car, that it is the very best it can be, and that everyone in his crew are working to the very best of their abilities.

            Rember we had the “wheel spin” in Italy, software gremlins which cost Hamilton 5 places at the start, and a record for consecutive wins which he seemed all set to equal. Then in Singapore we had a weekend of hydrolic issues which lead to poor qualification, a poor car set up, and braking issues where he came 3rd. Now he his engine blows up.

            To make all this the more gauling, you have media commentators pointing the finger at Hamilton the driver, instead of addressing the issue of his car’s poor reliability. I wonder what they will say now?

            As he says, “something doesn’t feel right”. If this isn’t ‘sabotage’ then its has to point to some other failing in the makeup of his inherited engine crew, and their attention to detail.

            This begs the question how would you get the engine to fail in the way it has? Remember this is information which will be known. Which leaves me to wonder what else can go wrong.

            Oh and lets not forget Rosberg’s desperate start, which once again let the opposition gain ground, and should have seen Rosberg off the podium…

            Having come back from a 43 point deficit, with its own story, how must Hamilton feel now?
            Has there ever been a situation like this? This isn’t just about the points or the championship, this is about his confidence in that car.

            1. “Engine crew”? There is no such thing as an “engine crew”. The teams swapped five mechanics. The mechanics work on the chassis set up and bolt together the various systems and components. The “engines” are manufactured in the engine shop, and the mechanics DO NOT work on the internals of the engines.

              Anybody who thinks Mercedes would “sabotage” Lewis Hamilton in any way shape or form is simply displaying their ignorance. And that also goes for anybody accusing Lewis of accusing his team of sabotage. Lewis is moaning about his bad luck and who can blame him.

            2. It’s F1 and HAM has no choice but trust his team. This “Mercedes as a German company would benefit from a German Champion” theory doesn’t hold up because there’s not proven connection between MB’s road car business with Rosberg success… it’s not like they depend on nationalistic German backers to keep their business going, it’s a global company, publicly traded with global partners and as far as I know Lewis Hamilton is their most popular driver, it’s almost like Barcelona benching Argentine Messi because they want to showcase a less popular Spanish player for the sake of supposedly appeasing their Catalan fan base, this is nonsense.

              Lewis was rightly frustrated because poor reliability record is unique to his side of the garage and pretty uncommon compared to other drivers with Mercedes PUs. There are five races to go and Nico is in a happy place but it’s not a given just yet so all he can do is fight and for that, he will need his team.

            3. the whole conspiracy theory angle is a strawman to keep people asking why Toto is unaccountable and to the question why is rampant incompetence acceptable?

              It might sound like conspiracy to question authority, and that is the real shame, how people are shamed for asking questions, even if some are somewhat skewed or emotionally driven.

              There is no shame in asking a question? And that is the real tell, if you want to understand the other person’s point of view, even if shame is all that seemingly is offered up.

              The real question is, WHY DOESN’T SOMEONE ASK Toto if he will take responsibility for the lack of preparation/engineering support/mechanical ability on Lewis’ side of the garage.

            4. @xsavior you make valid points, the trouble is: most people can make reasonable questions without implying there’s some kind of conspiracy against Lewis when people should actually focus on incompetente like you said. Mercedes board in Stuttgart should summon their F1 team ASAP.

        3. Ham said his engine failures “did not sit right” and “someone up there did not want him to win this year” .. I may be a bit dumb but nowhere in there can I see an accusation of sabotage or conspiracy.

          There are a lot of people here slagging him off because they read and interpret his comments so that it sits in with their dislike of the man, if they were in his position would they be happy that 8 drivers use Mercedes engines but only theirs kept braking …. I think I would be more than a little miffed and like Lewis would want some answers as well.

          1. Hamilton questioned doctrine/authority. That is unforgivable by some. This is what really matters to be honest. This is something that should really scare you.

            Most people know whats going on but insist on repeating the party line. This is what Orwell wrote about in 1948. (not misspelled).

            1. Really Orwell? For motorsport?

            2. Eric Blaire was a social critic. He wasn’t a science fiction writer. His critique of current day 1948 still applies to this day. The 20th century is an interesting one, especially if you pay attention to things like ‘consumerism’ (e. bernays springs to mind), the media and politics. History is a great teacher.

          2. Some good points. The only question i haven’t seen asked is how come Toto and the rest watching Hamilton’s telemectrics, how come they could not see the car approaching its limits?

            Hamilton had been pushing to increase the gap so that he could stop ahead of the next car. He had just acheived that gap when his engine gave out.

            Did they not see the car ‘red-lining’? Would the rules on what they can say to the driver have preventing them warning Hamilton of a potential failure?

      4. making a lot of assumptions here.

      5. @dex022 And yet you are here and he is up there enjoying his life…
        He stated facts today and wasn’t that bad when you consider the facts. He still thanked his team but said he is the only Mercedes engine driver (six if I remember correctly) that has experienced problems with engine this year and at the moment he cannot stop thinking about why only him had problems (plural here by the way). Wouldn’t you in his position?!! See it as you like but these are facts and not, as you suggest, “ungrateful” opinion.

        1. +1
          Anyone would feel distinctly put out if they were the only one suffering a problem, and consistently, that was costing them the world title. Given the situation, Hamilton expressed himself fine. Mercedes do owe him an answer big time.

          And no, it’s not impossible that some kind of human interference is happening. Highly unlikely, yes, but no team would or should rule out the possibility carte blanche. It’s happened before. And the statistics are starting to get very outlier-ish.

          1. geoffgroom44 (@)
            2nd October 2016, 13:18

            I’m with you BR. In a sport that is so statistic orientated it is not unfair to be asking the questions HAM is asking. However, HAM is not the biggest loser today. Mercedes reputation has just suffered a very big dent. For Mercedes their best out is a ‘sabotage explanation’ (is HAM simply trying to defend Merc?). This was a ‘new’ engine for goodness sake.

            As for all you anti-HAMs, please just look at the engine stats. Something is not right here.Any mathematicians out there that can relate this to the law of probability?

            1. A mathematician would point out that one incident will not affect the probability of the next.

              It’s absolutely fine to say he’s had poor reliability, few deny that, it’s when you try to explain why that it gets silly.

            2. No, the probability of the next incident is unaffected by past incidents, if they are independent. But you can give the probability for the sequence as a whole. Say the odds of an engine fail among 8 drivers with Mercedes engines happening to Hamilton are 1 in 8. Predicting over 3 failures in sequence, the odds of the same driver having the bad luck would be 1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8 = 1 in 512 (or p= 0.1953125 %). That at least would explain why it *feels* so improbable.
              Well, I think that’s the maths.

            3. Law of probability…

              Hamilton has 1 in 8 chance of having the next Merc engine failure, even if he has had the last 12. This is because each event is taken on an individual basis.

              Flip a coin 50 times and even if they all magically land heads, the chance of the 51st being heads is still 50%.

              Don’t cry for science, it doesn’t support you.

            4. @neiana

              It’s not expected that at least 1 merc engine will explode every GP they have to last at least 4 races plus fp and quali so probably good for 8 races, also 8 engines running each weekend so each driver should have at least a 1 in 512 chance of an engine blowout each weekend, the chances of any driver having 3 failures is even less given older engines are at greater risk than new ones.
              8 people flipping a coin, the chance of 1 person getting an abnormal result 3 times in a row is ultra ultra low.

            5. @9chris9

              You are trying to lump evverything together in a group. Statistics doesn’t actually work that way, it just appears to average out over time. Each event is an individual event.

              Actually, we are talking about it in the wrong sense. We should be discussing it in the sense that, what is the probability that THIS engine will expire? Now that we have removed Hamilton from the equation entirely, and can look at it properly, you might see things a little differently.

              Since it is mandated that each driver have 4(5?) engines per season and the calandar rounds to 20, let’s say that the ACCEPTED FAILURE PER DRIVER is 1 in every 5 races (for 4 engines over a 20 race calendar, otherwise I can’t do proper math). This means that every single race, the engine has an ACCEPTED PROBABILITY OF FAILURE of 20% for each engine part (according to rules). Now move this to every moment of the race, including pre race, etc.

              Also this would mean that it is possible that, in a span of 5 weekends, 5 different engine parts could fail and we would maintain the accepted failure rates according to the rules. Basically one failure per weekend is accepted by the rules, so long as the parts are always different.

              This means that while all suppliers are trying to have a much better reliability record, all drivers could literally have a failure every single race weekend without penalty, so long as the broken pieces were different.

              Moving on… how many total engine failures have occurred this year to Hamilton? I mean exactly like we saw in Sepang? Remember, this is an accepted probability once out of every 5 races for ALL engines. I mean, if all cars on track managed to run for 4 races and then have a total engine failure at the same exact track, it would STILL fall within the realm of acceptable probability.

              Now the problem is that if one part fails and it is due to a defect or some nonsense, an upgrade could stress other parts, or the original part could keep failing. If there is no upgrade and the same parts keep failing, but other parts do not, it STILL falls into acceptable probability of one failure per race weekend.

              If I went and looked at the number of parts that are a part of this rule, I think I would find there are more parts than I am accounting for, meaning a higher acceptable probability of failure on any given part.

              And if you really want to believe it is impossible for a bit of ‘bad luck’, then keep in mind that statistically, Vettel, Kimi, and two Red Bull drivers (doesn’t matter who) have a 25% chance of crashing at turn 1. Kimi and Ves have a 5+% chance of hitting each other no matter what else happens on the track. Oh and don’t forget we are guaranteed at least a 5% chance of Nico and Ham hitting each other. Red Bull statistically will screw someone out of a win by being stupid at least 5% of the time and Ferrari has gauranteed us at least 75% failure on strategy calls (affecting 20% of the races).

              It is a lot easier to believe in real probability as I have described with Hamilton, rather than grouped, forced and fake probability as I have described in the above paragraph.

            6. You see this type of real probablility in Ricciardo’s run last year. He had a ridiculous number of failures vs Kyviat and took the penalties late in the season accordingly (more penalties than Lewis has had thus far this year).

              Ricciardo didn’t come out and say a higher power doesn’t want me to win though…

            7. David, you’re don’t seem to grasp the difference between the probability of a particular outcome in one event and the probability of a particular outcome across ‘x’ number of events. They’re not the same.

            8. @neiana

              Almost but not quite.

              There is not a 1 in 5 chance of an engine not making it. Who’d bother raving with odds like that!

              An older engine has more chance of failure than a new one. Race 1 each merc engined driver has an equal chance of failure. Race 4 if one of the 8 has a new engine he has far less chance of a failure than the other 7, not an even chance.

              Think about it.

        2. Is he using his engines the same way as the other five are or is there a possibility that he’s digging a little deeper in the Strat Three bucket (tapping horsepower only available to one of them)?

          1. The drivers don’t have that flexibility, they will be using the engine modes in line with the team instructions or when approved by the pit wall.

          2. Sorry but malaysia is known though on engines, Hot and humid +he was the only merc being pushed for the win. Props to Red Bull for bringing it and making it blow…

            1. Tough, auto correct..

          3. when number 44 engine gave-up the driver was using/driving in qualifying mode.

            1. According to who?

            2. HOW DO I KNOW? When the engine gave-up with 16 laps to go the flames were liking out of the left side waste gate exhaust pipe, which means the waste gate was open. although waste gates can be regarded as a safety valve to regulate turbo boost, on the present PU they are never open in normal racing condition as turbo boost is regulated/taken care of by the MGU-H, which can spool-up or slows down the turbo as need be to regulate boost. BUT, in qualifying mode the waste gates are open, exhaust is bypassing the turbo, the turbo is being spooled by MGU-H, MGU-H is sharing ES power with MGU-K, in this qualifying/maximum power mode the engine has no exhaust power supping back pressure.

            3. And Collantine, another thing, as the flames (as I said) were licking out of the left side waste gate exhaust pipe, which means they were bypassing the turbo, what let-go/happened was inside one of the odd number of cylinders (1-3 or 5), this because the even number of cylinders (2-4 and 6) are on the right side. also Rosberg also used qualifying mode for 8 laps to overcome his 10 seconds penalty.

            4. He was in the process of trying to build a gap to pit and come out in front of the Redbulls so using maximum power wouldn’t surprise me, it is surprising that the engine didn’t last a single race though, maximum power for a short stint-or-not. When they target at least 4 races per PU

            5. @keithcollantine

              For the statistici considerations:

              In the end we now finally saw a team presuring the mercs. On pure pace without “godmode” the mercs are no longer that much quicker. They have to use the “use up engine mode, qualify mode” to build gaps. All the past years it was lift and coast with a few Laps of godmode. Now it was a lot of it, in humid and Hot conditions. If you understand reliability you know it is random, but the higher you stress towards the limit of the engine the more chance of failures. Exactly what happened to Hamilton. You have to not count the other merc engines, they were not being stressed to the same level, ergo, dont fail.

              Game on!

      6. Obviously, you dislike the guy and your hardly capable of being impartial. Yes Hamilton should be fired on the spot for saying “something doesn’t feel right”.

      7. Where did he claim saboteurs? “Something just doesn’t feel right.” doesn’t equal saboteurs.

        1. What do you think it meant?

          1. Alex McFarlane
            2nd October 2016, 17:30

            Someone not doing a good enough job?

      8. Good news for Hamilton that he is not driving for Enzo Ferrari. ;o)

      9. Lewis was saying it in a religious sense that someone “up there” didn’t want him to win and didn’t mean someone in his team. Some of you around here are really really stupid but what do you expect from the Einsteins lol.

        1. I don’t see any mention of religion in what he said.

          1. @Mike: Really? your gonna be that resistant to other explanations of something someone you have never met said one time?
            Really? Youve never heard anyone talk like that ever? Especially knowing how religious lewis is?

            Really?

        2. So you call Deus Ex Machina?

      10. Exactly, there’s no way that Mercedes are sabotaging him from the inside. It’s just bitter, upset fans who can’t possibly stand anything going against their god making stuff up.

      11. Ha! While I don’t agree with his comments, I can understand his frustrations. The obvious way his detractors have predictably jumped all over these post race comments is laughable. Mercedes will get over it. I’m not sure the keyboard warriors will though.

        1. Haha, well said.

      12. What’s the difference between Lewis Hamilton and a Jumbo jet ?
        The Jumbo het stops whining when you stop the engine!

      13. Heat of the moment, can’t blame him. Im sure he would rethink he’s words once the dust is settled. Its just bad luck

      14. LH better to look for a new team and place your bets there. No point blaming and getting into the Wolf’s den. No way you can be put of nationalities after the three wins.

    2. The team have stopped HAM from doing his standard media interviews.
      Seems like the team are a bit concerned / angry with his comments.

      1. Who wouldn’t?! I mean, who pays 40millions for bad image? This is what HAM is doing to Mercedes. It’s like biting the hand that feeds you.

        1. geoffgroom44 (@)
          2nd October 2016, 13:20

          xcuse me, but bad image is caused by engines blowing up, not comments about engines blowing up.Focus,please focus.

          1. Mercedes have built the most dominant car in F1 history – 3 years in a row. 1 blown engine is not going to cause a bad image. The only thing that has caused Mercedes any bad image the last few years has been their drivers and their management!

            1. +1.

            2. One blown engine, huh?

        2. No the BAD IMAGE is flames coming from your Companies engine exhaust.

    3. This reminds me of Maldonado at Austin in 2013

    4. I love Mercedes and the car brand. But, is it worth buying a Mercedes car in the future as a car for me and my family? LOL. Anyway, it seems odd but I find it hard to believe that there is an “on purpose sabotage on Lewis’ car”. Something must be wrong in his engine area but probably the team do not see it. Though I don’t know more than team because with all the technology now, and all the personnel working around their cars, it seems odd but there is something wrong in Lewis’ car that probably cannot be seen. I am sure they will do a huge inspection for next week in Suzuka and a huge analysis because that cost him 25 points. Now what? Lewis will be mad in the last 5 races? Easily said but Nico could come 2nd to him every race, because the car is still overpowered but not in comparison to the W05.

      1. @krichelle If you do the maths, assuming the Mercedes finish 1-2, Hamilton can win the championship

    5. I understand his frustration, but to make comments like these to the press is not smart.

      1. geoffgroom44 (@)
        2nd October 2016, 13:23

        unless you are trying to defend Merc engines blowing up. Suggesting ‘Divine intervention’ – or human intervention, is actually a decent bit of PR. Merc doesn’t get blamed for a crap ‘new’ engine. All is not as it seems down this rabbit hole.

        1. I think the last poster was trying to provide a context for Hamilton’s comments “Someone doesn’t want me to win this year”, by saying it was used in a biblical or faitalistic context. ‘Devine intervention’.

          Its like when hamilton used the pharse “all things happen for a reason”, which is one of those almost biblical sayings used to help explain difficult times.

          Maybe if the press where asking more probing questions of Mercedes, Hamilton would not feel the need to pose those questions himself. He will have read last week’s over simplistic presentation of the situation, where his distractors used events to question the world champion’s ability as a driver.

        2. Go on Mercs facebook and tell me how much Merc is getting.

          If it was with PR in mind he failed decisively.

    6. For crying out loud! Stop playing the conspiracy card, Lewis! It’s your style of driving that puts more strain on engine, power train and brakes. Sure, it makes you quicker most of the time but like today, when you were pushing hard ahead of a final pit stop, things can and sometimes will break! As someone else famously said; F1 is not about being the fastest all the time. It’s about winning by the smallest margin (or words to that effect).

      1. I am also wondering does his aggressive style put more strain on engine in these hot conditions.

        1. I wondered about that too but he specifically said he wasn’t pushing at the time. And even if we assume he is aggressive it is still a Mercedes failure for the engine not being durable enough to take it.

        2. What aggressive style? What a load of rubbish.

          1. Exactly, laptime comes from braking and steering input, not from trundling down the straight with your foot flat on the pedal.

            Do these people think Lewis presses the pedal harder than the other drivers and thats where his laptime comes from? Be careful Lewis you might push your foot through the monocoque!

          2. I remember it being found a few years back that Hamilton tended to be on the brake and accelerator at the same time, through corners and stuff, whereas this wasn’t the case for Rosberg. Perhaps this might put more strain on the engine than which recovers energy from braking? Just a theory anyhow, but I think though that its a bit too unusual for it to just be bad luck, and I believe the conspiracy ideas are rather ridiculous.

            It was sad for Hamilton though, you could hear the pain in his voice. I think if Rosberg wins the title this year it will be due Hamilton’s reliability issues, as opposed to Rosberg driving well. For me, Rosberg hasn’t done enough to be worth of being world champion.

          3. On one hand you have fans and drivers asking for more powerful and faster cars, on the other some are claiming LH was pushing his current car too hard today. Must say this baffles me.

        3. Wasn,t rosberg much more agressive on the machinary today to catch up plus being hit twice but still no car probleme come on people mercedes has won so wanting rosberg to get the championship is more than plausable…

      2. For crying out loud! Stop talking about someones driving you know nothing about. Look through % of time drivers are in full throttle during the race. I’m pretty confident Ham will not stand out from the rest.

        1. Does anyone know how to actually get this data?

        2. @ivan-vinitskyy It wouldn’t just be about the percentage of time a driver spends at full throttle.

          The way a driver uses the throttle pedal, The way he is with the brake pedal, The way he turns into corners, The way he shift’s gears & at what rev’s as well as how he uses kurbs & where he places a car through a corner, what lines he is taking, at what rev’s he is at through/at the exit of a corner & even various aspects of how a driver likes to have the car setup (gear ratios, throttle maps, brake bias & suspension stiffness) can all have a big impact on reliability.

          You often see certain drivers over the years always tended to suffer less reliability than others, Jean Alesi & Rubens Barrichello for instance always suffered less reliability than there team mates in every team they ever drove for & it usually tended to be put down to the way they drove & the setups they used stressing things more than there team mates.

          1. @gt-racer, that was then but this is now, and now it’s drive by wire so the driver can only work the engine within the parameters the software allows, sometimes stuff happens or perhaps Roscoe killed a black cat.

            1. … Black cat thing is also not real…

      3. So suddenly his driving style has put a lot of strain on engines? Last two championship he must have been really lucky then. An almost new engine doesn’t blow up like that. The conditions may have played a bit to his bad luck. Lot of factors involved in such incidents, so let the investigation end.

        1. you can’t help people that WANT to lie to themselves. The facts speak for themselves, Toto and the brass at that team clearly have no interest in the reliability of Lewis’ car. Thats a fact. They are either incompetent or dishonest. Either way Lewis is getting boned by his team this year, in effect, he is not being allowed to race his teammate in the championship, in effect, and he is being taken down by reliability.

          But you can’t talk honestly to people who don’t want to be honest you see. Thats how the game is played, why people pay millions and millions of dollars in to this ‘thing’ because stupidity and lies sell quite well to people who want to believe in lies. This problems is many thousands of years in the making, commandments have been made against people worshiping this kind of thing, yet people still keep on wanting to pick from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. :) Its a real tragedy for sure. Lewis is the only thing keeping Merc honest this year, and this is what happens to people who get in the way of the machine.

      4. geoffgroom44 (@)
        2nd October 2016, 13:26

        Please don’t let me disturb your rant, but did you notice that there were no indications back at the pit instrumentation that this ‘new’ engine was about to blow? Doesn’t that tell you something?

      5. If this is the case, then you would think there would be some analysis on how he drives the car compared to everyone else with the same engine. You would think there would be advice on how to treat the engine, when to push and when not to push. Where is that advice?

        Are the new rules on what they can say to drivers over the com a factor? Also when Hamilton was pushing to extend his lead, where did that instruction come from? Was that just Hamilton? Or was he informed how far ahead he was, or how far ahead he needed to be?

        Its all very subtle, almost ut not quite bincompetence. At the end of the day drivers are a special bred who exist on the edge by their experiances and their instincts. Hamilton has a sense of something not being quite right.

        As for what that something is, well that’s anyones guess. In this situation all we can do is just keep them honest by presenting the question. At the end of the day the best driver with the best package should win the championship.

      6. Maybe thats whats wrong with F1

    7. People say bad luck but this is simply too much for it. Other Merc powered drivers enjoying amazing reliability including his team mate. I don’t know why but I have strong feeling there’s a reason whether it’s driving style or garage work…

      1. There is no such thing as bad luck, only odds. And because the odds are not within the expectatons, people are making things up. Just accept that an engine failure is possible in f1 and any engine can fail at any time. And that the reliability of one engine is not influenced by another engine. Just because other engines are fine, does not mean every engine is fine.

        1. + 1

          Most rational comment on the subject. Hamilton should study the chaos theory so to understand what’s going on instead of implying that there’s a conspiracy against him.

          1. Why SHOULD and F1 driver should study chaos theory? Are you an expert on Analysis & Performance of Automobile Engine Components – considering Thermal & Structural Effects? Have you studied Fatigue Failure on ICE Components & Units? Or the intricacies of Aerodynamics, Yaw, Roll and Pitch?

            Some people should really think a bit deeper, before they make some comments. Sigh…..

            1. It’s obvious that you are a Hamilton supporter and it seeems that that’s the reason why you are somehow agressive on replying to my comment. FYI I’ve worked 35 years in the satellite industry so I do know and have a lot of experience about the topics that you mention. I also hold a PHD in Philosophy so believe me, I do think very deeply most of the time. And yes, I’m old and I’ve learned to respect other people’s opinions. something that in my opinion you should learn too.

              “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality” Albert Einstein

            2. And yet haven’t learnt enough to understand that a driver fresh out of a bad race might be seething and hardly ‘processing data’ in the most dispassionate way?

            3. Mr. K. B. Davies, please follow your own advise:
              “Do for Love. Do for Passion. Do for Fulfillment. Never ever do to prove anyone wrong”

            4. David BR is right @mariano, Hamilton was asked straight out of the car, full of adrenaline and frustration.

              Wolff reported that he went to the garage talked to the team to lift them up.

          2. yeah, problem with your chaos theory statement is that it sort of implies a ‘strange’ attractor. If you want to argue your chaos theory against me I would be more than welcome :) But I think you should consider taking a statistics course before doing that.

            There are three things that could be happening, the team are A. being dishonest, B. incompetent. C. actively sabotaging Lewis to satisfy stakeholders.

            They are being dishonest any way you cut it. But it is interesting to see how many people follow suite. In Chaos, the patterns are still there, and they can still be clearly defined. And the problem is definite, has a clear motive/intent, if it were to be something being intentionally ignored/done unto. The real question is, why doesn’t Toto Wolff take responsibility for providing a poor and unequal opportunity for Lewis Hamilton. But you see, in corrupt institutions, worldwide, something that is universal, accountability, is really not seen nor heard of, and Toto can keep whistling his tune, as long as the SHAREHOLDERS are happy. And that is the real solution to this problem, If nothing happens to Toto, and no public statement is made acknowledging the clear inadequate support (something law suites are made of), then it is clear what the real interests are, and at the very least its to mitigate the potential of Lewis sewing the guy on the other end of his contract. Which I might add, is consistent with how consistent Lauda and Toto were when they kept saying early on in the season, OVER AND OVER AGAIN how Lewis was getting the same problems Nico was. Even Nico is very clearly following this line, the rhetoric is poor, but it is consistent, and when you want to solve a math problem, it’s that consistency that really points you in a ‘good’ direction.

            1. * if it were to be something NOT being intentionally ignored/done unto.

              * suing

            2. @xsavior
              As always great insight. As for “The real question is, why doesn’t Toto Wolff take responsibility for providing a poor and unequal opportunity for Lewis Hamilton.” Couldn’t it just be that TW simply denies that LH is getting a poor and unequal opportunity? So that the supposedly real question isn’t even an issue.
              And what about the “actively sabotaging Lewis to satisfy stakeholders.”-point. Could you elaborate a bit further?

        2. “odds are not within the expectations” is a good reason to “people are making things up”
          What do you think needs to happen for ppl to start noticing issues? Perhaps a podcast from head of engine department to explain how hes sabotaging Ham’s engines for you to believe it?

          I don’t think your logic on reliability is correct. You started off very well with mentioning odds but then went off to say one engine failure has nothing to do with another. I’m sure Mercedes know how many KM engine needs to do and failure rates. If they expect 1 failure per every 100 engines doing 10k km and all of a sudden 1 driver instead of this 1/100 gets 38/100 failures.

          yes I’m making up numbers here but it’s because I only have rough figures. Someone correct me if they please…

          1. The truth is, if you flip a coin 50 times and it is somehow heads each time, the chance of flipping heads on the 51st attempt remains at 50%.

            If all Merc engines are equal, and all chances of failure are equal, and no driving style interferes with the odds, then statistically Lewis has an equal chance of having the next reliability issue despite having the majority of them this season.

            That is just math. Annoying, stupid, basic math.

            1. It looks so easy right? The question is not what are the odds of a driver having a failed engine in the next race. The question is what are the odds of a driver having a failed engine x times in row or season.

              Your coin example is too simple, the chance of engine failing is not 50%, say its about 5%. Having engine failed twice in 2 races is 2.5%. Of course with each race, reliability decreases so odds of failure are higher.
              But my point is nobody is looking at individual failures. nobody is surprised that you guessed heads when you flipped a coin… but call the right side 10 times in row and ppl will start thinking you might be cheating.

            2. Engine failing is purely detetmined these days by how man Laps of high Power Engine mode you use, bar the errors on the parts.

            3. Correct; eight Merc engines on the grid, all else equal, he has a one-in-eight chance of having the next Merc blow-up. But the truth is…
              … Bernie put sugar in Hamilton’s tank. Bernie’s not geriatric, he’s so smart he can “pull a Briatore” without getting caught.

            4. @paul-a

              Actually no prob more like 1in2 chance the mercs will use the high Power mode more as they get pressured by red bull for the win more. The other merc engines dont get used that much in high power mode that much(assumption) , as only merc probably takes more liberty based on more knowledge of the reliability /engineering of the engine.

    8. Bet Hamilton doesn’t feel #blessed anymore. More like #cursed

      1. @huhhii like Mark? :)

    9. Good Lord.
      F1 today seems a giant conspiracy against everything I like, even when it comes down to which driver on an all-powerful enemy team wins.
      Ferrari, my team, can’t shoot straight.
      Mercedes, the new devil, at least has Lewis, a good guy and exciting driver, but mechanical problems hand the lead to the totally boring Nico.
      And even when both Merc cars have trouble, the old devil, Red Bull, manages to rise from the grave and top the Scuderia.
      Gawd.
      Wake me up when things are back to normal.
      In 2030.

      1. WillOfTheSupremo
        2nd October 2016, 10:41

        Inb4 Red Bull WCC 2030

      2. Hehe, at least your comment make me smile troutcor.

    10. He should be really angry? Why shouldn’t he be? But he should really not make these comments. I didn’t really see Massa blaming his team for his engine failure in Hungary 2008, or Singapore 2008 which cost him both easy victories and a easy WDC. He should really have been more mature in this instance.

    11. Hamilton is the Justin Bieber of F1.

      1. This is the single most accurate post on this site. Ever.

    12. Hamilton will go back to Mclaren just in time for Mclaren to start winning and Alonso to retire.

    13. Am I the only one that doesn’t see him playing the ‘conspiracy card’ and more just blaming ‘lady luck’ or such. Because, no matter how you put it, only his going is odd. He’s not wrong. It doesn’t mean it’s sabotage or such.

      1. @philereid No, but maybe among the first to comment so.

      2. You’re far from the only one, but there absolutely is no reason for anyone to whom that sounded like a normal statement to comment on it

    14. What the issue with the driving style of a 3 time world champion and one of the all time great f1 driver.fully agreed with Lewis.its something else,really disappointing.its pity to hear Maldonado comparisons and manor ddemotions here.lewis has every right to express his emotion.There are 43 engines and Why Its lewis Hamilton always?. usually in every team the better driver will get the better treatment it’s a real shame if the championship is decided by reliability.

    15. One of the best races of the season and all everyone is talking about are the comments of a cry-baby sore loser.

      1. Obviously you have never raced competitively if you think he’s being a cry baby after losing a win and chance to lead the championship. I lost a race once because of a failure and punched my mechanic.

        1. And your mechanic quite rightly broke your arm, thus ending your career?

          1. No he took it on the chin as I had just lost the championship, 30k prize money, a chance at a paid drive and a 4k engine. As I walked back in the pits with tears in my eyes he said “told you we should have gone with an open grille” ofcourse he was right but my emotion was so high I took it out on him. I also bought him dinner and beer that night.

            1. “I told you so” is often worthy of a punch.

        2. Agree with your sentiment Mike. I was on a team which won 4 softball championships in a row. After the first two championships, the officials changed the championship venue from our home field. They took away something we earned. We were really angry and had choice words. It makes me wonder how many have actually competed for any type of championship. Competition breeds high emotions regardless of the sport.

          To clarify, I’m not saying Mercedes sabatoged Hamilton. I’m just saying, competition involves high emotion and at times, almost as powerful as the emotions of say, love. Of course people will say stupid shit with emotions running that high. I too know what it felt like to compete at a lower level. Now ratchet that shit up by about tens of millions on a world stage and you’ve got the possibility of some really bad choices of words. I recall being thrown out of a little league game because the umpire called me out after I was actually safe doing the Pete Rose head first dive slide. I yelled, You suck!, to the umpire. That’s just little league. Hearing you loud and clear.

          Another problem, I’m guilty myself, not many put themselves into any of these competitors shoes. Many are implying they’d have kept their mouths shut but in reality, have no idea what they’d say or do in a world class competitors shoes.

          Their are a ton of Mercedes engines on this years grid. Iirc only Hamilton has taken grid penalties and only his reliability is suspect. If I truly put myself in Hamiltons shoes I’d wonder what the heck is wrong also. He’s already said, he needs to drive better. He must be wondering wtf else can he do after today. If he was actually pushing the engine too hard I’m sure Mercedes would have told him to dial it back. He wasn’t pushing the engine with his “agressive” driving style. If he was over revving, they’d have pointed that out too, I’d think.

          TLDR, if you’ve ever competed for any type of championship, sometimes emotions get the better of you. Even a top professional. In the end they’re only puny humans.

          1. Very well said.

      2. geoffgroom44 (@)
        2nd October 2016, 13:34

        xcuse me, how do you call a 3 time champ a loser? Your name should imply that you have an understanding of perfectionism being undermined by fate (or whatever) in which case you would know the frustration of giving your all….and your engine blowing up on you. I guess your ref to ‘cry baby’ is a bit of mirroring,huh?

    16. The common denominator when it comes to Mercedes Engine failures here is Hamilton himself.

      Provided there is no intentional sabotage (highly unlikely. why would you pay someone 40 million quid a year to not win?), perhaps its Hamilton’s driving style thats causing the failures?

      I dont have facts, but the stats are suggesting this. Its either that, or he is bloody unlucky…hey, but he’s had his fair rub of the green in the early parts of his career..what goes around comes around I suppose…and its not to say its the end of the world! He will still win the title this year…Nico Bottleberg is due a return to form.

      ..I dont even like Hamilton to start with!

      1. You say Hamilton is the common denominator but conveniently forget or choose to dismiss his side of the garage as if they aren’t common to all his engine failures too.

        It’s obvious you don’t like him.

        1. It would be kind of odd to believe that a full random team of mechanics, part of Mercedes as a whole -some coming from last years Rosberg’s team, some being on Hamilton side for ever- are sabotaging Hamilton, while Rosberg just has sweet lovely lads on his side that came from Hamilton’s side.

          If that’s true, Rosberg must have had an horrible, unfair time for these last years before the switch.

      2. “..I dont even like Hamilton to start with!”

        Wow. you don’t say!

      3. Hard to diagnose…. But compared to Rosberg who has identical car… Lewis tenda to stay in higher gear(less revs more reliability), tends to brake harder and later. But most probably he does not have serius driver errors…

      4. Care to explain how an F1 driver can drive an engine harder than another? They are heavily monitored on their engine mode usage that’s really the only way you could drive an engine harder than your team mate or do you think Lewis pushes the throttle pedal harder than nico?

      5. So Hamilton is the common denominator to the failures therefore it must be his fault ?? Just because the evidence is there as to which driver is suffering the most failures doesn’t make it the drivers fault with no evidence to back that theory up. We really don’t know the reason why he is having more problems than his team mate do we ?

      6. geoffgroom44 (@)
        2nd October 2016, 13:37

        I once knew a fisherman who was always getting wet in the rain. I asked him why he always went out when it was raining…he said’ you get more fish that way’. The common denominator was water, but I thought the fisherman was stupid.

        1. I think hes was getting more fish, because all the other fishermen, were staying home.
          :)

    17. Rubbish! After Alonso, Hamilton is obviously the 2nd rubbish talker from the paddock.

    18. When you pay a driver £30m per year to advertise your road cars in front of an audience of millions then you don’t deliberately set out to create a scenario where your car has smoke and flames ripping out the back of it, before grinding to a hault.

    19. Given Hamilton’s previous comments (he also said that ‘things happen for a reason’ when talking about Schumacher’s skiing accident), it is not inconceivable that he was simply talking about a higher power.

      Other than that, if you seriously believe that your team is sabotaging you, then you should obviously leave that team immediately.

      1. If you follow the trend here they will convince you Hamilton believes he will find the same rock that injured shumi in his airbox

      2. I do think that his “someone doesn’t want me to win the Championship” on live TV needs a bit of backpedalling. I just saw Toto on Sky and when questioned about that one, he said “Come on, you know who he means by that” which point towards the spiritiual explanation to it as you mention @girts.

      3. So Lewis should knew this was a karma of piling engine penalty previously then. Or do you imply that he believed that history will repeat itself and its time for him to return to his previous team that will have higher power in 2018?

        1. I wish people would stop with this ‘karma’ nonsense. Grow up.

          Do you not know why he had to take all those engine penalties in Spa? Do you think he done it for a laugh? He done it because of diabolical reliability on his power unit early in the year, and secondly, he didn’t do anything wrong by stock piling engines in the first place, there was no rule against it.

        2. Let’s not forget that Red Bull and Ferrari used the same trick in 2015. I don’t see why Mercedes or Hamilton should be ashamed @ruliemaulana.

    20. This reminds me of a journey to work last week when I was stuck in traffic when I was already late. I said to myself, “Someone or something doesn’t want me to get to work today.”

      It’s a phrase of irony, simple as that. Nothing to see here. Hamilton just feels down that it keeps happening to him, he isn’t pointing fingers anywhere.

      Yes he will look into it with his team to check there is nothing inadvertently happening. He could, for example, be being too gentle on his engines! Sounds crazy, but it could be something he or the team is doing without realising it is having an impact. The only logical explanation at present is that there is no explanation. And until the point that there is one, that remains the case. Sabotage will be the last thing on the list, it’s just the most unlikely thing.

      Hamilton is using the media wisely, knowing they’ll twist things and it will make the team look at things under even more scrutiny. I believe that he said what he said knowing that it would be taken out of context.

      1. +1.
        Couldn’t agree more.

    21. Stupid stupid comments even after just getting out of the car. It’s sad really, a classy brand represented by a superstar who acts like a child and another who I believe is the worst wheel to wheel driver in F1 behind a few obvious drivers. Watch out Rosberg is on your inside…still there still there ………come in we have a flat thanks to Rosberg.

      1. Yeah just like your comment. Some of you need to go and get a life.

    22. I think it is time to look up the statistics for Hamilton. He certainly is not the only one with a Mercedes engine to suffer engine/powertrain issues this year.

      Off course he did lose more engines than others, although the first 3 were down to one issue that took him a while (and Rosberg suffered that issue too just not as often and not as painfully in the races and qualifying)

    23. There might be eight Mercedes-powered cars, but don’t only the two Mercedes cars have the special sauce that lets the engines be turned up to 11?

      1. No, they all get that Phylyp, especially in qualifying, though it might be the case the team has a bit more lenience to go to those modes during races.

        1. @bosyber – Thank you, I didn’t know that.

          1. If Hamilton would keep is big mouth shut, when things dont go his way, I might become a fan, but until them, I just hate him. :)

    24. I don’t understand anyone saying Hamiltons driving style could have anything to do with this. I mean seriously, what do you guys think he’s doing in the car ? I’ve read so much from “experts” on here about him being more aggressive… Says who exactly ? Rosberg throws the car around just as much, as does every other driver on the grid. It’s not like Hamilton is the only driver out there going flat out. If it was gearbox after gearbox then maybe you’d say he’s doing something wrong, but the failures have been different parts and different ages. If it’s his driving style then how can some parts last several races and new parts last less time ? If his driving is contributing to the failures then he’d be having the same failures each race. Seriously this “aggressive driving” nonsense is getting old. I bet 99% don’t even know which parts have failed and why, yet you know it’s Hamiltons driving style causing the faults ?! Any armchair experts care to explain exactly how Hamiltons driving is contributing ? And I mean exactly in detail, please share you’re amazing F1 knowledge with us as you’re all so wise.

      1. He has an history of occasionally using more powerful engine modes against the team’s recommendation, though…

        1. Please, do expand with evidence.

        2. James,that’s such a poor answer. Every engine on the grid will be maxed out in qualifying, I said something specific in Hamiltons driving not something every driver does. Bringing up engine modes from two years ago when Rosberg was actually the first to go against the reccomendations seems like you’ve completely missed the point.

    25. he gets new engines at spa,then in singapore he has a engine issue in p2,then today his engines blows up.
      he’s had alot more than the fair share of mechanical issues,especially at crucial times this season.
      he has to win the remaining 5 races, which he wont do.

    26. Can anyone tell me where Hamilton ever suggested that the team are intentionally sabotaging him? Stop implying and inferring with those Hamilton-hating lenses, twisting everything he says into evidence you can use to discredit him, and just objectively recognise that he has been hard done by reliability this year and has the right to feel dejected and expect answers from the team.

    27. It’s been reported that some supermarkets are noticing a shortage of tin foil over the past few hours.

      1. @craig-o
        Which is impressive, since most UK supermarkets only open at 10am on a Sunday!

    28. England’s football manager lost his jobs making private comments attacking the organisation he works for. The English FA got tough and sacked him.

      I think it is time Mercedes did the same. No driver is bigger than the team no matter what his fan boys say. Failure to do this makes the brand look weak and pathetic. Lewis or no Lewis, Mercedes would have swept all before them in 2014, 15 and 16.

      1. I do not like Hamilton. In fact I do not like him at all.

        But saying that he should be fired just because of his answer to a question minutes after suffering a very painful and frustrating engine failure goes too far in my opinion.

        1. geoffgroom44 (@)
          2nd October 2016, 22:24

          I like your balance,Nikos. Very fair.

      2. So, you think that Merc will be doing themselves a marketing favor by dumping a driver that feels put out due to excessive mechanical failures. What do you think their customers will think should they encounter failures with their road cars? Not to mention the implications of dumping one of the best drivers in F1 for their lack of performance.

        1. Yes, Hamilton is suggesting that the car is sabotaged. This is terrible PR for Mercedes. I’m not sure the brand will recover. If any employee publicly stated their employer was sabotaging them they would be fined or worse sacked. Nico finished ahead of every driver in every other car for the last 3 years so Hamilton clearly is not indispensable for Mercedes to achieve their aim of winning titles.
          Hamilton does provide additional PR you are right but I don’t think hanging out with Rihanna, Kanye and airhead supermodels is the marketing favour you think it is.

          1. Hamilton is not suggesting that the car was sabotaged.
            He is sugesting though that some spiritual forces are against him (Lewis Hamilton is a very religious person if you didn’t know) at the moment. Someone reported further up this page that Wolff confirmed this.

            1. OK, I will take your word for it and no assume this is some well thought out PR back tracking.

        2. Irrelevant. The current cars are the most reliable in F1 history by some margin. By your logic, customers shouldn’t have bought any Mercedes powered cars given their reliability in the past.

          1. You said it, not me. They have received very low quality ratings and hold one of the lowest resale values of any German made luxury car brand, bar none.

            1. Failure of Mercedes road vehicles has nothing to do with their F1 cars. I don’t hear any f1 driver complaining bar Lewis which is laughable as they have handed him two WDCs on a plate.

      3. Actually I think having hamilton as rep for Mercedes-Benz products (cars) has actually given merc a new demographic to sell those cars to I am from the U.S. and I have seen an uptick in the number of mercs being bought by African Americans. So yes having the only driver of color win championships with your engines actually has helped the brand.

        1. Well his fans are less likely to buy them now Hamilton implied they are sabotaging him. Kind of undoes the previous benefits of him in the team.

        2. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
          3rd October 2016, 0:34

          @Mig I was at a Mercedes dealership yesterday and there wasn’t anything about their Formula 1 pedigree. I went to an Audi dealership after that and all the white walls were plastered with massive pictures of their racing car pedigree from LeMans to earlier models. Really Cool! I wish Mercedes had done the same…

      4. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
        3rd October 2016, 0:32

        Considering the haters Lewis has and their fanaticism which IMO eclipses his supporters, it’s not too outlandish to speculate that someone might not want him to win and that person might be able to have some impact on some things. However, it’s definitely outlandish to assume that the company as a whole would ever try something like that. It’d be akin to a car company trying to fool the EPA about its emissions… These things are preposterous.

    29. What is it about Hamilton that gets everyone so riled up? He loses a near-certain win, and people have the nerve to criticise him for being frustrated?

      1. Ian MARK GONDWE
        2nd October 2016, 10:59

        I reckon it’s because of his skin colour and that he represents urban black culture that some don’t agree with.

        1. Lol talk about conspiracy..

          I will tell you why I don’t like him. He came into the sport as a pompous rookie. He drove well. He drove better than my favorite drivers… one of which dethroned the previous king. He doesn’t seem to focus on his “job” as much as his personal endeavors. His appearance–color of skin having nothing to do with it–has always been annoying. I don’t really appreciate most people who dress like that because the ones I have met almost always act a certain way (even the white guys or Asian guys..but I laugh at the primo Asian guys most of the time…but I digress).

          Some people hate me because I am naturally good at things they have to work for. I have been yelled at for supposedly showing off during a time meant for relaxation. Maybe that’s it. Maybe people don’t like Hamilton because he is the Jeff Gordon of F1. He shows up, looks and acts different, wins easily… (also like Tiger Woods) Be lucky he wasn’t sponsored by a company with a rainbow.

          1. Check out a young Tiger Woods – since you name him – on his experience of racism in golf: https://youtu.be/Pw9iaKKrem0?t=3m45s

            1. Woods had that problem because he is American. I was under the impression that a winning Brit can be purple or orange and loved.

              For all purposes, if Trump were British and he won races, the UK would adore him.

              I have this impression, but I am not British. Feel free to correct me.

            2. @neiana

              what about Indian or Mexican? Lets be honest now. Some of the shady looks/comments on Sky alone is enough to let me know, despite what history shows, that people are people where ever you go.

            3. @xsavior

              I have only ever met one Blaxican (his term) and he was “a cool dude” but very much a sterotype of a Mexican. I have no experience with Mexican’s being as enthusiastic about their own as a Brit might be.

              I have explained my white American reasons for disliking Hamilton, reasons that have nothing to do with skin color. I am always labeled a racist or ignorant, stupid or whatever and I factually know I supported Hamilton until he beat my favorites.

              In NASCAR I don’t like Keselowski, Logano or Johnson. In Indycar I don’t like Power or Rahal. In CART I didn’t like the Andrettis. It is a common theme to dislike the usurper, then to like the usurper of the usurper. It is almost as normal as simply liking all great drivers equally, but how does that go when you shove supporters of Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton and lately of Verstappen into a room and close the door?

              Remove Hamilton and there is no color involved but the problems will remain. Heck wasn’t this a german driving for a German team agreeing with two different nationalities driving for Austria, that another German driving for Italy was crazy? Why must it be skin if it is Hamilton we dislike?

              * India is notorious for castes, so much so that anyone from the lowest caste who happens to physically be higher than someone else can be publicly beaten in many villages. Beaten, raped, murdered. And yes, they are usually much darker in skin color. Small differences, but differences nonetheless.

          2. Basically you don’t like him because you have pre-conceived prejudices. Such honesty deserves an applaud.

            1. I would think it has more to do with “he beat my favorite drivers” but his attitude/style certainly added to it. He whined a lot and let his personal drama interfere with his driving ability, so that was easy enough, but it all started when he was just too good.

              I was excited for his rookie season…for maybe two or three races. It has taken me a long time to admit he should sit next to Alonso and Vettel as greats but some people who followed the sport longer probably had the same problem with both Alonso and Vettel.

        2. Ian MARK GONDWE, Yeah, I’m going with this too. His “agressive” driving style and his “natural talent” without any mention about his intelligence on the track are all out of the sports descriptions playbook.

      2. That’s true

      3. What? No.

        When he said noooo on the radio the vast majority were with him. It’s what he said at the interview that’s drawing flak.

        1. I think you mean it’s the selective quotes that are being intentionally misinterpreted for newsworthiness, or even less worthy reasons, that are drawing flak.

      4. It isn’t the first time Lewis makes these insinuations. Back then it was “more than back luck”, now it’s this. Alonso still gets criticized for suggesting Renault wasn’t helping him enough in 2006, and people rightly mocked Maldonado for suggesting Williams was sabotaging his car. Hamilton is a champion. He should be above this.

    30. The media and internet people are being so rubbish with all this. Read Hamilton’s comments or watch the video interviews and he appears nothing but thoroughly reasonable about the whole thing. It’s a shame so many people are willing to express extremely strong views about something they’ve not really looked into.

      1. Just seen the video on F1’s Facebook page, and I have to agree – he made some statements which are being (mis)interpreted in different ways. The chap asking questions also did a good job asking reasonable and insightful questions without trying to tease out a soundbite.

    31. Malaysia 2016 is sabotage. Russia 2015 was just bad luck.

      1. @kingshark Sometimes I wonder how the forums would look like if every fanbase reacted like many of Hamiltons did.

        1. And what would they look like if every driver attracted the same level of irrational hate as him?

          1. You mean like Vettel and Schumi did? ;)

            1. And Alonso and anyone else successful

        2. @kingshark @xtwl you seem to have some axe to grind against Hamilton’s fans.
          But all the comments from them in this page state that it’s tough luck for Hamilton, and he isn’t blaming the team for that.

    32. surprising at hams lack of maturity at throwing his toys outta the pram

      1. I bet he knows how to punctuate a sentence, though.

        1. and spell

    33. My advice to Lewis is if he thinks that he is not getting a fair go, leave, other teams would kill to have him.

      If he doesn’t and it’s just reliability biting him particularly hard, stop fueling conspiracies.

      1. he really doesn’t have any other cards does he. If he can be done by with reliability, with ridiculous levels of impunity, he really has only a couple plays left to make, and that’s for a public appeal and to grab a lawyer and start going after the management which is clearly behaving negligently.

        I only hope Lewis has some solid wording in his contract, because that really is his Achilles heel in this hole affair. If public support can’t carry him through, hes done, It’s very clear the management have only a very very modest modicum of interest in providing lip service. Probably because they are mitigating their risk of being involved in a law suite, as what seems to be happening does indeed look like fraud, at least from my position. I am sure there are talks, meetings and things to do where the employees get together and things are official, and more spelled out, cause it’s not totally necessary to fill in every detail for the guys behind the tubes. But still, it’s terribly biased it seems. I suggested to Lewis he needs to get a good lawyer and think about a Root Cause Analysis. I don’t even know if Toto Wolff knows how to run a business. In fact this could all be due to his incompetence, and a lack of discipline with in the ranks :) Wouldn’t that be something

        at any rate, Lewis isn’t getting a fair shake this year, and that much is indisputable.

        1. *suggested via twitter / :) I don’t have any contact with him personally, nor would I want to make it seem like I do.

        2. I think Totto Wolff does if the last 3 years are anything to go by no?

      2. You’ll notice that the only ones fueling the conspiracies here are Hamilton’s detractors. Whatever he does or says they will spin it to support their PoV.

    34. Good Race, happy for the Red bull boys showing other teams how two excellent drivers using race craft to make the race interesting…

      Another engine problem for Hamilton, Hamilton blows off some steam in the media, remember Monaco and his comments
      quoting Ali G? Well this is almost of the same tone, can’t blame him, i’d be extremely peeved too if that happened to me considering he was faultless all weekend…
      Nico Rosberg, another 10 second penalty for a clumsy move on the inside of Raikonnen, all i can say is *sigh*, but i honestly think the track was perfect for Rosberg to make the places up from the collision at the start, all in all Rosberg had a lot of luck today and Hamilton did it.

      For the rest of the season, will boil down to luck, if both Merc’s get 100% reliability for the remaining races and the Red bull’s (Forget Ferrari, i think they’ve canned this season) put up a marginal fight, I suspect Lewis could sneak it, but if I had to bet, this seasons WDC should go to Rosberg as if it doesn’t i really, really don’t know what he has to do to win one?

      1. *Hamilton didn’t.

      2. He was certainly lucky getting hit by Seb and being last after lap 1

    35. I have not done the analysis but it does seem he has had a frustratingly high share of Mercedes failures – I don’t think it’s sabotage obviously but it’s nevertheless annoying for him
      The guy is just frustrated after a couple of bad races it was all coming together and then the failure happened. Give him a break

    36. Barrichello had rotten luck for most of his career and nobody mentioned conspiracy once. Because there was none.

      Very childish from Hamilton, just needs to accept that you can have bad luck to go with the pretty sweet luck in his time (i.e. Interlagos 2008). It’s called the law of averages. You win some, you lose some. Very poor from Sky Sports as well, giving the conspiracy theorists oxygen.

      1. If you think Interlagos 2008 was luck and not an inspired drive with a risky decision to change to wets at a late stage when others were not, then you really need to see things in a different light. Try looking at the whole race and not the last lap, try looking at the whole year and not just 1 race !

        1. I think @roodda is referring to how Timo Glock lost places at the very end to deny Massa the WDC as being an instance of good luck. He’s not saying that Hamilton’s entire drive in that race was due to luck.

          1. Yep Phylyp gets it, especially as it seemed that Glock had made the right call as his lap times were fine, only for the rain to pick up on the last lap. Besides, it wasn’t a risky decision to change to wets (intermediates) as everyone else did so. And i’d hardly call starting 4th and finishing 5th an inspired drive!

    37. This is not humble Lewis that Ron raised

    38. More than talking about a conspiracy or sabotage, i just feel sorry for him (especially this weekend; inch perfect all week and didn’t even put a foot wrong).

      He’s doing everything he can do defend the drivers’ title but it just seems as if it’s not his year.

      It may even get worse bcuz Hamilton already has 2 driver reprimands and getting another would lead to another grid penalty.

      Whatever the outcome of this season; i am 100% sure Lewis will be back and fighting next year

      1. +1 to “i just feel sorry for him”

        Hearing him say “Noooo” and seeing him with his head in his hands in the car was very sad. Particularly when bad luck strikes you from an unexpected quarter like this – engine reliability would have been the least of his worries given his new pool of engines.

    39. Lewis on instagram :
      ” today, the pain is indescribable, but i truly believe god never gives you more than you can handle. i want to say a huge thank you to the fans who stood on their feet in the blazing hot sun, or from their sofas at home, watching and supporting me this weekend. i’m so grateful. i have 100% faith in my team, they have worked so hard both at the track, and factory, and i want to say a huge thank you to them. i know we’ve had all these problems but it’s not how we fall, it’s how we get up. it’s not how we are in moments of comfort that define us, but how we are in the face of adversity. we are champions and that’s how we will move forward. i will, we will, never give up! @mercedesamgf1 photo by @suttonimages “

    40. Martin Brundle got it spot on in a tweet he just posted: “I won’t go with conspiracy, an insult to 1500 Mercedes team members. How do you make an engine do Fp3, qualy/race then blow up on demand?”

      1. As it turns out, that particular engine did the previous race then only P3 / Qualifying / Race today.

      2. @hugh11 Lewis put something along the same lines on instagram, see: https://www.racefans.net/2016/10/02/hamilton-3/#comment-3286957

    41. For those who wish to watch the interview.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rxA9ePt9xM

    42. You have 5 races ahead, just win them and the WDC is still yours. But please, Lewis, do yourself (and everybody else) a favor and keep your mouth shut.

      1. @hyoko

        I am sure you did not listen or watch the interview linked right above your statement.
        There was no reproach from Hamilton just a statement of puzzlement at his engines
        bad luck. And his determination to keep fighting.

    43. Sviatoslav (@)
      2nd October 2016, 12:20

      I am ready to hear once again from Lewis, “It’s because I’m black.”

      1. he said “maybe its because I am black” and he was being politically incorrect, not making a positive statement against the stewards.

        but I am sure we will hear someone else misquote him every day of every week.

    44. No of course F1 never has any dirty dealings happening…cough cough Renault Nelson Piquet jr crash gate … before the obvious rasicts carry on hating Lewis, open your deluded eyes and look into why it’s only his Merc energise out of the whole field that has had so many issues

    45. I’m not going to call sabotage, but it’s defiantly unacceptable.

    46. The team doesn’t deserve those comments from Hamilton (my favorite driver) no matter how upset he is, he’s not a kid. Good luck for next races for him and for the team.

      1. Which part of the comments? The compliments to the team doing a great job? Or the statement about his personal engines comparative high rate of failure?

    47. I know 20 drivers who would happily swap seats with pour little Hamham if it’s that bad :-)

    48. “I just can’t believe that there’s eight Mercedes [powered] cars and only my engines have been going this year.”

      Very odd indeed.

    49. So does it means that HAM hast to go for a new engine at Suzuka, which will translate to a grid penalty?

      1. He has a brand new engine courtesy of the Spa swaps, and an engine with 3 races on it (IIRC), according to Toto Wolff. So no engine swap penalty at Suzuka, unless they decide to bring in a whole new engine package, or if they need to change the gearbox.

    50. These F1 engines are all built in small quantities. No-one takes a large stock of parts. If a subcontractor needs to provide an extra batch of parts due to unforeseen failures, and has an issue with for instance the heat treatment equipment, it could happen that a complete batch is more susceptible to failure. That way, Mercedes can have an excellent track record with one, and the worst odds with another batch of engines. If fate deals a certain pilot with a larger quantity of defective components this could take a while to be noticed. If you make thousands, the fault will be seen rather fast, but on a 50’ish total, a batch of 5-10 parts will go unnoticed a lot longer.
      Bear in mind, if for instance a turbo fails on the exhaust side, the list of causes can be long:
      Engine lubrication, vibration, exhaust flow and temperatures, waste gate resonances, ICE valve trouble, shutdown and startup procedures, … F.I. Lubrication can be split further: Oil level (dry sump less relevant), quality, temperature, pressure, contamination, viscosity…
      To make it even harder to find the cause, every car is driven by a human, and humans are unpredictable.

      Something out of my personal experience:
      A few years ago, Saab had an issue with a customer who had 3 failed turbochargers in a single year, caused by the habit of the driver to let his engine run a minute at low RPM’s before shutting down. While this has been seen as a good practice to let the turbo cool down, and advised on a large quantity of technical magazines, in the instance of this particular Saab engine family, it caused the turbo to be under-lubricated during the cool down.
      After investigations, the driver stopped his cautionary behaviour, and the problem didn’t occur again.

      1. Alex McFarlane
        2nd October 2016, 17:11

        My personal experience, I’ve had three flexi pipes on my Ford Focus in the last few months. Probably a bad batch, but I would expect Formula 1 parts to be built to tighter tolerances.

        I still find it statistically odd though that Hamilton would get all of the dodgy engines.

    51. Evil Homer (@)
      2nd October 2016, 13:44

      I am a massive RIC fan so we had a good day! LEW did not.
      You cant blame Lewis for his comments today, he just got out of the car in a race he should have won and is miffed why its his car this year!? His asking was correct but his forum was not, it should be kept to within the team.

      Does anyone really think the Mercs will sabotage a 3 x WDC so Nico can win? (Not a rhetorical question, does anyone think a multi-billion dollar team would actually do this??)

      I was a Webber fan and always thought the Seb Sabotage theories were stupid- Red Bull did favour Seb (and that’s fine) but you don’t put an F1 car on the grid just to make it fail!

      Lewis will (or perhaps should) look back on his comments and regret them, or maybe he was just making sure he made his point taken. I don’t think they would do that, but hey……………. this is F1 :)

    52. Here’s a simplified statistical analysis from a non-statistician:

      Assumptions:
      Engine failures are random events equally likely to happen to any driver.
      Only one engine failure can occur at each race (for simplicity – obviously if two failures occurred at one race then they couldn’t both happen to the one driver).

      With six drivers using Merc engines we can then roll a six-sided die to decide who suffers each failure.

      For one failure there are six possibilities, so the probability for each driver equals 1/6.
      For two failures there are 36 possible combinations (6^2) of who suffers the first failure and who suffers the second one. HAM-HAM is one of the 36, so the probability of both of two failures affecting the same driver equals 1/36.
      For n failures the probability of them all happening to the same driver equals 1 / 6^n.

      I don’t know how many failures HAM has suffered this season so I don’t know the value of n, but statistically I think HAM is justified in feeling, at the very least, extremely unlucky.

      1. Well, Hamilton has more Mercedes engines than any other driver, so he’s more likely to have an engine that has this kind of structural flaw (a brand new Mercedes engine has a failure) ;)

      2. @moblet

        In essence it is more reliability engineering then chance.

        I would argue that normal engine mode is designed to use the engine for infinite cycles(many cycles per race) , which you probably need to survive with 4 engines a whole year. This is probably done with a low safety factor, to not make the engine too overdesigned, we need speed power etc. So the normal engine mode, can fail, but looking at the amount of failures the mercs (all supplied engines) had, they probably are spot on on this.

        Now the “qualifying mode” lies in the finite cycle part of the stress-strain curve. You need a lot of data to be sure on the amount of cycles you can use it. I would argue merc still doesnt know this very well, they have not been under pressure for 3 years, have not had to challenge themselves to learn this. As such they set a stick in the ground based on limited experience. Lets say, use qualifying mode 10laps per weekend. Now this dataset is far from complete, very uncertain. As such Hamilton used the engine in qualifying mode too much on a higher stress circuit, engine power, Hot, humid.

        They gambled, willing to win, the dataset now got another point, probably they need to be more conservative.

        Always possible that it is an early part failure of course, then all above goes out the window.

    53. Some statistical probability numbers..

      There are 8 Mercedes powered cars on every grid, the chances of each driver having the only PU related failure in the weekend are 1 in 8, simple enough. This is repeated throughout the season, same every time they race. For the same driver to have a problem in another race without another driver having a problem in between, it’s therefore a 1 in 64 [8×8] chance, then for three in a row 1 in 512 and so on. That makes it highly improbable that the same driver would have a series of failures in the absence of an external factor.

      I haven’t kept count of which Mercedes powered cars have had failures and would welcome an article totting this up and presenting the facts. Right now it seems like the failures are due to something Lewis is doing and I’m sure were that the case he would be grateful to anyone in the team who could tell him, he’s a fast learner and would surely modify his driving accordingly. I suspect that’s partly what he was getting at when he said ‘something doesn’t feel right here’, he wants the engineers to sit down, look at the data and tell him what’s different, not just issue serial apologies.

      But there’s worse possibilities. Low volume manufacture has its limitations, not all parts are made equal and there isn’t the volume or time to iron out all the potential issues. Were the three extra PUs that were supplied to bolster Lewis’ stock built by the same people from parts from the original batch? Were the parts selected during pre-season build such that the ‘best’ 40 sets were used for the engines allocated to 8 drivers at the start of the season? You’d certainly think so.

      For whatever reason it isn’t right and something most certainly does need to be done about it. Lewis is right to suspect more failures if these 3 extra units have been built from the ‘worst’ of the parts made before the start of the season.

      1. “Right now it seems like the failures are due to something Lewis is doing”

        No it doesn’t.

        Not all the incidents are the same. This was a brand new engine that hadn’t been pushed nowhere near the end of its life or to its limits for long, having only been pushed briefly in qualifying. His problems earlier in the year where Turbo related. He then went on a 6-race win streak having changed nothing in his driving. The problems he had in Singapore where hydraulic leaks and suspension issues (unsurprisingly, after Merc updated their front suspension). Today, something in the combustion engine went bang. Probably piston rings/valves or something, which he has zero control over.

        1. Did you read the rest of my post? Do you know anything about the probability of failure? If you did, you’d realise that unpalatable as it may seem to me, as a Lewis fan, the only credible explanation for multiple early season failures on just one car in 8 is the operating profile, the way the car is being driven.

          Todays failure is from a different batch of engine builds, assembled from the 41st, 42nd and 43rd worst set of components left in the stores from the beginning of the year. Hence more failures may well occur on Lewis’ car, a point I made later in the post

      2. @frasier

        Agree can be low volume production issue/not knowing the limit. See my other comment in the chain just above on reliability, you might like it.

    54. I just dislike him more. Yes, Lewis, you felt something not right every race you didn’t win…

      1. I know I’m wasting my time, but here we go: Did you watch the interview? Did you take a look at his eyes as he was speaking? Payed attention to the part when he says the team did everything they could?
        Of course not, aftermath you said “I just DISLIKE him MORE.”.
        Try to check out some of the comments above, some sportsmen were sharing how that feels (losing without apparent reason).

    55. Agree with Lewis. Deliberate or not Merc are costing him the championship. Gotta have the German champion! ;-)

    56. Does anyone know if the Mercedes guys at their engine factory know which engine is going to each driver? If yes, perhaps Mercedes should not tell them which car the engines they are building are going to be installed on! To prevent potential driver bias within the engine department?!!

    57. The consensus of comments here has more to do with how the commenters feel about HAM than with how they feel about what he actually *said*, it seems to me.

      It’s pretty clear what he meant, ‘cos he explained his reference was to the providential, not personal, when asked to clarify. Yet so many are disparaging his comments out of context, in stark contrast for example to RIC’ s far more controversial and repeatedly negative comments about his team post-Monaco.

      Then again, this is familiar territory whenever Lewis is involved.

      1. Ricciardos comments and behaviour post Monaco were worse than anything Hamilton has said. As you say though it’s not about what is said but who said it

    58. Daniel Hamzagic
      2nd October 2016, 16:02

      The FIA ​​provides each GP a table with information on the use of each component by car drivers regarding the power unit parts, exchange, etc. These have their limited quantities per season and from a quantity used render a punishment in starting positions for the drivers. So Alonso dropped last today. This table shows that Hamilton has exchanged often these components (almost double that Rosberg), showing that he has forced the car up than he can handle. that’s why the Mercedes engine broke just in the hands of Hamilton this year. There is no plot and “the will of God.” If Hamilton is not champion this year will only be because of his own attitude. All pilots want the best car to be champions, but to be champion with the best car it takes something more. And that Rosberg has shown this year.

      1. Unfortunately you known so little about what you are talking about it is laughable

    59. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      2nd October 2016, 16:11

      Devastating for Lewis – horrible turn of events for Mercedes. They have practically given Nico the championship this year and never have we seen actual racing where Lewis rules supreme. The only word you can use starts with the word “cluster”.

      Do they ask Nico to sit out a few races to make it even? They can’t…

      1. And they shouldn’t @freelittlebirds. As painful as it is, mechanical failures are part of racing.

    60. In all seriousness, I’m fairly sure that this isn’t even Hamilton’s unluckiest season to date. In 2012 he retired from six races of which none were his fault, and that’s before we mention the errors from McLaren in the pits or in qualifying.

      It’s also not as if reliability has never affected a championship before. You just have to look at seasons such as 1950, 1979 or 1987. Does anybody go around saying that the titles won by Farina, Scheckter or Piquet don’t count? I don’t think so.

      Rosberg suffered more bad luck in 2014 and in 2015, and in 2016 so far it is Hamilton. That’s racing.

    61. Alex McFarlane
      2nd October 2016, 17:16

      No conspiracy theories, just Hamilton’s side of the garage haven’t done a good enough job. It’s a possibililty that Hamilton could have got all the dodgier engines this year, but it’s still statistically unlikely.

      Maybe the mechanics and engineers were used to working differently with Nico and it hasn’t worked out with Lewis.

    62. “Something or someone doesn’t want me to win this year”.

      It is “something” Lewis, it’s “something”!!!
      Now get off twitter and lok yourself somewhere until you can keep it together. The next race is just around the corner.

    63. What’s the difference between Lewis Hamilton and a Jumbo jet ?
      The Jumbo het stops whining when you stop the engine!

    64. What people need to remember is Hamilton is a man of faith. So when he says things are not right within the confines of his beliefs it makes sense he doesn’t accept it’s just statistical chance causing his problems.

      He has to believe it’s either his gods will or a willful act from someone against him by someone.

      He’s probably not feeling too #blessed this year.

    65. I’m interested in knowing what David C and Mark W said after they heard Lewis’s comments. I can remember early on in the season when Verstappen won or was on the podium, and Ricciardo had his whole race turned upside down. He made a few comments to the media and they said how he shouldn’t say anything bad about his race or his team.

    66. To me, he’s just been incredibly unlucky this season. I’d like to see the numbers though… could be a nice article :)

    67. i think it’s funny how people think hamilton shouldn’t be complaining. Like they wouldn’t do it on his position.

      They are fighting for the championship and he GAVE 3 races without a fight to Rosberg thanks to reliability. And now he lost another one that would be the 4th race if was not for Vettel.

      And he should be all smiles and happiness anyway.

      No human being in the world would be happy on his position. He is crippled on this fight.

    68. Funny, didn’t see Nico spit the dummy and squawk to the media or any of you clowns spewing histrionic conspiracy theories when he had magical steering wheel failures out of the blue in critical races….ie: Singapore 2014 DNF which Hamilton got 25 points out of and overtook him in the championship. Or 2014 Abu Dhabi where Nico’s engine mysteriously loses power and he finishes 14th…in a double points winner takes all finale. hmmmmm….where were you then???

      1. Hamilton hasn’t done either of those things so not sure what your point is.

      2. 2014 was well known for Hamilton’s early reliability issues, with rosberg suffering a similar amount towards the end of the season.

      3. Abu Dhabi 2014 was lost for Rosberg at the start of the race. Without the engine failure he would have finished 2nd in both the race and the championship.

        1. Exactly. Rosberg NEVER made a pass on Hamilton on all this time.

          The only ocasions he lost a race to Hamilton due to reliability were GB 2014 and Russia last year. On all others he was already behind.

          He was not going to win Singapore or Abu dhabi anyway.

          Hamilton lost Austrália 2014 and yesterday. And was ahead at Singapore last year. And started from the back a number of times already. Rosberg NEVER needed to do that.

    69. I am not naive to not understand what Hamilton actually meant in his immediate interview after the engine failure. He was proportioning blame and you would have to be a blind fan to not see it.

      But I am also very sure that when a person is knocked down repeatedly by things not under his control, then he will try to find reasons for it.

      When Hamilton’s engine blew, I had a tear in my eye.
      But when I saw his second interview and Toto’s interview, I was so proud of Lewis.

      You should really see Toto’s interview if you have not. It will make all the above ^ discussions irrelevant.

    70. Why would Mercedes blow up their own engine, which gives them very bad publicity, just to favor one of their driver?

    71. There were similar rumors about sabotage back in the early 90s when Damon Hill was driving for Williams. He had some odd blow-ups that ruined his chances against Prost and Senna. I can’t see it. If it were true and came out – even years later – the team would be in deep trouble. Individuals might be looking at jail time.

    72. Lewis was successfully robbed of the WDC in 2007 in the final race with a mysterious car issue, his title charge was severely hampered by “car issues” in 2014 and was only rescued by the biggest fight back in the history of the sport. Now in 2016 we see again Lewis being targeted with an unprecedented and consistently poor level of reliability. I’m starting to think these repeated efforts to stop Lewis winning the WDC are coming from someone very high and very powerful in the sport.

      1. Please no. Don’t feed the anti-Hamilton brigade with conpiracy theories.
        This is racing, sometimes the engines blow up.

    73. geoffgroom44 (@)
      2nd October 2016, 22:33

      I fail to see how anyone who works with, or is close, to this 3 time world champion could wish to cause him problems.
      I am hoping that a thorough examination of the damaged engine will reveal the real problem here. It is not unreasonable, especially in the heat of a very emotional moment, to hint at the unthinkable. I don’t see in his words any accusation against his team. I am interested to know why all the ‘hammer bashers’ are making the presumption that his words were directed at his team. They could just as easily be interpreted as being directed outside of the pit, even heavenward.

    74. Heat of the moment comments. He can see the title is becoming a little out of reach now. Can understand his frustration but its just down to bad luck and he’s had most of it.

      1. When has he ever had more luck?

        Are people rewriting history?

    75. I don’t understand where this Rosberg was so unreliable in 2014 and 2015 comes from and Lewis had no issues

      1. I do, it’s called confirmation bias.

    76. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
      3rd October 2016, 4:51

      I just watched the interview and I cannot fathom some of the negative comments here. Go watch it and I’m sure you’ll wonder who the crybabies are… Gut-wrenching interview to watch.

    77. I am a fan of Lewis. I am a fan of God too. Most people have a difficulty in interpreting the difference between right and wrong, Lewis included. Instead of cursing bad luck and feel like everything has been done in a “right” way, Lewis should consider that “divine” justice doesn’t count on FIA’s book of rules. Pilling up a bunch of new engines at Spa to gain an advantage maybe was legal, but it surely was not ethical. It may be so that luck fires back at you when you try to outsmart it. And maybe this true big unfortunate event for Lewis wouldn’t have happened, if he just did at Spa only what he needed to.

    78. I think if you put most people in Hamilton’s situation you are going to get a similar reaction, having just retired from what looked like certain victory due to another engine failure meaning your World Championship hopes have been badly damaged and while you seem to be the only one using Mercedes engines suffering problems.

      The BBC headline stated that Hamilton was furious, yet having watched the Channel 4 coverage and interview I didn’t understand this as he didn’t seem furious, something like despondent or dejected seemed a more accurate description.

      From his comments I didn’t think he was accusing Mercedes of sabotaging him, although I knew there would be plenty of people saying that was what he was doing and that there would be plenty of idiot conspiracy theorists suggesting Mercedes were trying to fix the championship.

      I thought Hamilton was saying he wanted to know just what was going wrong with his engines, but not blaming anyone.

      Regarding the someone doesn’t want me to win quote, I thought that was like when he thanks God for his victories, even for those who don’t believe in a higher power when things don’t seem to go your way you can find yourself saying similar things.

    79. Something missing from all of this is actual numbers. Is there really any good data on the actual failures of engines this year?
      I made the simple look up of all the reasons given for retirement from a race (on wikipedia) and counted anything engine like (including overheating, and oil leaks).
      In this case there were 6 retirements due to Mercedes engines, of which Hamilton has 1.
      I know this doesn’t count engines lost in practice, qualifying etc, or problems in a race that didn’t lead to full retirement.
      So I would conclude, based on this data, there is nothing wrong.

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