Lewis Hamilton says it feels like "a higher power is intervening" in his championship challenge after retiring from the lead of the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The triple world champion was comfortably clear of the two Red Bulls and set to re-take the championship lead when his power unit failed with 16 laps remaining at Sepang, taking him out of the race. It is one of a number of power unit problems Hamilton has suffered this year, and team-mate Nico Rosberg extended his advantage to 23 points after finishing third.
After the race, Hamilton suggested he was suspicious of the fact the failures appear to happen more often on his car than any other Mercedes-powered car, but asked what he meant by the comment "someone doesn't want me to win", Hamilton replied: "A higher power.
"It feels right now that the man above, or a higher power is intervening a little bit but I feel like I’ve been blessed with so many big opportunities, firstly being here with all these people around here, the opportunity in this great team winning the last two championships.
"[I've had] lots and lots of big trophies and records that I’m breaking time and time again, so I have to be grateful for those. While this does not feel great I feel grateful.”
And Hamilton insists he has "100% faith" in his team after seeing the reaction from Mercedes when he returned to the garage following his retirement.
“Honestly, you’ve got to understand from my point, on one side we’ve had the most incredible success over these last two years of which I am so grateful. These guys work so hard, we are all feeling the pain right now.
"When you get out of the car after the feeling you have after leading the race and the car fails, it’s pretty hard to say positive things but honestly I feel, as I said in the interviews, Mercedes have built 43 engines with the extra three that I have had and I happen to have had most of, if not all the failures, so that is definitely a tough thing.
"But I have 100% confidence in these guys, I’ve been with them now into my fourth year with the guys in the garage, the guys back at the factory. I have 100% faith in them.
“I love it here and without them I would have not won these extra two championships and while the struggle is real now, and has been this year, honestly I feel it’s a test of will, a test of my spirit and who I am as a person to get back in and keep fighting it head on.
"It’s not how you fall it’s how you get back up. That’s really, I think, as much advice to me but to my guys as well because I saw tears in the eyes of my mechanics. So I know that we all bear the pain, but as I said it’s how we regroup, we’ve got to bear in mind what we’ve already built.
"While in the short term this does not look good and obviously for the year and in the long term it could be not very good but there’s lots of positives, there’s still five races and I believe that, I don’t know if my two engines are going to make it but I can only hope. If I can perform the way I have performed this weekend then I’ve got everything still to play for.”
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