Malaysian Grand Prix: Lewis burns in the sun

That was a bit tasty, wasn’t it? A Red Bull one-two, Nico Rosberg third despite a first-corner contretemps that dumped him down the field, and a penalty for a bulldozer move on Kimi Raikkonen.

Oh, and the small matter of Lewis Hamilton’s engine blowing up, followed shortly afterwards by Lewis himself blowing up.

Where do we start? Lewis (pictured), of course…

Roll-up, roll-up, get yer tinfoil hats here

The race was barely over – there were still cars on track – before Hamilton was giving interviews, his heart all over his sleeve as usual.

‘I just can’t believe that there’s eight Mercedes (powered) cars and only my engines are the ones that have been going. Something just doesn’t feel right,’ he said, less than subtly.

Indeed, Hamilton has been cursed with poor reliability this season, and he’s angry.

But don’t for one minute think that he was lashing out without thinking. In interview after interview he gave exactly the same message: only my engines are failing and Mercedes need to find out why.

In a chat with Sky, he even cut himself off when he was about to go too far while talking about the remainder of the season, saying: ‘Right now, I don’t even belie… [cuts himself off] I don’t even know if my car’s going to make it.’

There’s a big difference between saying you don’t know something and you don’t believe something, and Hamilton was careful not to say the wrong thing.

Now, whether you believe there’s a conspiracy at Mercedes or you believe Hamilton is simply unlucky or you believe there’s a remarkably talented rogue engineer quietly wrecking Hamilton’s engines, the most significant thing is that it has rattled Lewis at a key point in the season.

He was incredibly focused this weekend and utterly destroyed Nico Rosberg in practice and qualifying. He led the race from the start, while Rosberg got caught up in a shunt with Vettel (that saw the Ferrari driver handed a three-place grid penalty for the next race) and, all other things being equal, should have been heading to Suzuka with a seven-point lead in the championship.

Instead, he’s 23 points behind, with five races to go.

If he wins all five, he’s champion. If he doesn’t, then he needs Rosberg to make mistakes.

Hamilton’s performance this weekend shows he certainly has the measure of his team-mate – but he’ll need to show mental strength as well if he’s to give himself a chance of another championship.

Anyway, there’s nothing new in this – check out Hamilton’s comments at the Austrian Grand Prix in June, where he said: ‘We are putting in the last new engine this weekend … I’m the only Mercedes driver to have that, and we are the Mercedes team. If there are 40 engines then you’d hope that we would have the best ones.’ Sound familiar?

Is there a conspiracy at Mercedes?

I have to say that, if my main sponsor was a Malaysian oil giant, giving me €30million of their hard-earned Malaysian dosh a year, I probably wouldn’t choose to blow up one of my own cars at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

As far as the broader conspiracy theories go, they tend to suggest that Mercedes would like Nico to win because he’s German and Mercedes is German.

Mercedes are in F1 to sell more road cars and Nico might sell more in Germany… but Lewis is a global brand. So if there was going to be a Merc conspiracy, it would favour Lewis.

Seriously, Mercedes don’t pay Hamilton $42million a year just to stop him driving for someone else; they pay him to help sell Mercedes cars, and he won’t do that if he keeps driving around with flames spewing from the back of his broken Merc engine.

What about a rogue employee, sabotaging Hamilton for whatever reason? The ‘lone wolf’ would have to be pretty smart to be able to break different parts of Hamilton’s power unit without ever being caught.

Of course, there have been incidents of espionage and sabotage in F1 and there’s no doubt a shady side exists. So this particular theory is more plausible than the ‘Merc hate Lewis’ theory. It’s just not that likely.

Some suggest that Hamilton’s driving style stresses engine parts more than other drivers’ styles, because he wrings a little more out of his car.

In actual fact, Hamilton and Rosberg both spend most of their races with the engine turned down, so dominant is the Mercedes platform.

Hamilton has never been known as an ‘engine breaker’ and, even if he was, it would be instantly clear what was wrong – the electronic controls and monitors on an F1 car provide unbelievable amounts of data about everything from driver inputs to how the engine and aerodynamics are performing.

Is there an issue with the ‘process’ on Hamilton’ side of the garage – installation of parts, checking procedures etc?

It’s not likely – Mercedes swapped some of the Hamilton and Rosberg crews around earlier in the year – but this is something that will undoubtedly be looked at by Mercedes, if only to reassure Hamilton.

If you’ve ever stood in a casino and watched the roulette score monitors, you’ll know it’s not that unusual for a series of six or seven reds (or blacks) to appear. Chance is like that – it happens but it’s just a bit hard to believe.

Is it actually Mercedes who are cursed, not Hamilton?

If Merc had won in Malaysia, they’d have equalled McLaren’s 1988 record of 11 consecutive wins.

Instead of which, Rosberg almost crashed out and Hamilton went up in smoke.

The last time Mercedes had a chance to equal the McLaren record, they only had to win in Barcelona.

It was only a few months ago and, as you may remember, that didn’t end well for Merc either – Hamilton and Rosberg collided, putting both cars out of the race (pictured) and allowing Max Verstappen to taste his first victory.

As well as equalling that McLaren record, a Mercedes 1-2 today would have wrapped up the Constructors’ Championship for them.

Maybe Toto Wolff would be excused for thinking that he is suffering even more than Hamilton…

Definition of a popular winner

Step forward Daniel Ricciardo, remove your racing boots and, once again, fill them with champagne.

Then pass them around the podium so everyone can drink from your footwear and, presumably, share any unpleasant foot infections you may have.

Both Red Bull cars were ready to pounce when Mercedes stuttered. It’s not so long ago that Red Bull were constantly complaining about how poor their Renault engines were – now they pick up the points when a Mercedes engine expires.

As a team, they have addressed their weaknesses in a way that McLaren and Ferrari must envy.

And they’ve worked out how to ‘let their drivers race to the end’ without risking a crash: when Hamilton retired, both Red Bulls came into the pits in convoy for new tyres.

Because Verstappen had to wait a few seconds for Ricciardo to complete his stop, he rejoined far enough back to take the pressure of the Aussie.

It was Ricciardo’s turn to benefit from a Red Bull strategy call – he’s come off second-best several times this season – and Verstappen handled the situation perfectly.

Still, Ricciardo looked utterly exhausted before the podium ceremony; I do wonder if he’d have had the energy to hold off Verstappen if it had got a little more intimate between the Red Bulls in the closing stages.

And an honourable mention to…

• Jolyon Palmer, for finally scoring a point in F1

• Fernando Alonso, for dragging his McLaren from last place to seventh

• Valtteri Bottas for quietly (very quietly) scoring a fifth place for Williams Martini

• Jenson Button for having an uncharacteristically good weekend in his McLaren, qualifying well, racing well and only being denied more points because he pitted shortly before a safety car

• Romain Grosjean for his comments after his brakes (yet again) failed, on only lap nine. He radioed: ‘OK, so I braked, the brakes breaked. Whoah!’