Why would Mercedes screw Hamilton?

It doesn't take much for Lewis Hamilton to spit the dummy, and after the Malaysian Grand Prix he did exactly that.

He was having a fantastic weekend, dominating his Mercedes team-mate and world championship rival Nico Rosberg, and he was set to regain the points lead when it all went wrong on lap 41. I know engine failures are not things we see very often these days, but sorry, sometimes they do happen.

These power units are, all told, developing in excess of 900bhp. That from a 1600cc V6 turbo plus the hybrid is something very special, but to do it with the fuel limitations that the current regulations dictate is nigh-on miraculous. The manufacturers should be getting a big pat on the back and not publicly criticised when it goes wrong.

To fuel a conspiracy theory is downright disrespectful to Mercedes as a company, no matter how disappointed you are after the crushing blow of losing a deserved grand prix win.

It pays Hamilton many millions for his services, but why would anyone in their right mind in any way hint that this might happen? To direct any part of the blame to the engineers or the mechanics that work on his car is even worse, given that they regularly bust a gut for him.

Yes, Hamilton has had some problems this year in China and on the streets of Baku, and he suffered with the grid penalty in Belgium when fitting new components. But his last mechanical retirement in F1 was more than one year ago.

Rosberg has had fewer problems this year, but if anything it would be more unusual if you had exactly the same number of problems on both sides of the garage - the way these things work means problems don't always neatly alternate between team-mates. Rosberg, in previous seasons, has had no lack of misfortune. Remember, he was the one who had an ERS problem in the 2014 title decider in Abu Dhabi. These things do happen.

Even so, the Mercedes power unit had become close to bulletproof, but this year we've been seeing the limits having to be pushed harder and harder.

It could also be that Lewis has been hit with bad luck after having to have extra power units introduced for use this season. Perhaps it's a simple component batch problem. There are many thousands of parts that make up these engine packages and the failure of any one of them can have catastrophic results.

Many times during my career, I saw drivers that just seemed to suffer more with reliability problems related to all sorts of components than their team-mates. It's easy to say that they are harder on the car than the driver on the other side of the garage and this can happen when it comes to kerb use or looking after the brakes and tyres.

But as far as the power unit or the transmission is concerned, the driver is in reality just a passenger. He gives the systems a signal and it is up to the electronics to work out the best way to achieve this, so he has very little control over what is gong on. So that's unlikely to be at the heart of Hamilton's problems.

If something the driver is doing really is contributing to the failure, then the team needs to analyse this and come up with a solution that will rectify the problem. The driver cannot do that on their own.

Lewis should have the confidence to know that nobody is trying to screw him. Mercedes will analyse the data and identify and rectify the problem. This won't happen overnight, but as Mercedes powers eight cars, that's an important asset in finding the problem, if there is one.

Stripping and analysing a few of these engines might point towards the root cause. Mercedes will also try to simulate the way Hamilton's power unit was used on the transient dyno and try to repeat the failure but hoping it can shut it down before it blows up. It will take time, but one way or another the cause will be found.

But irretrievable damage can be done to relationships by someone opening their mouth before thinking, and it doesn't take much, when you do that, for a few people to start paying more attention to the other side of the garage.

I also have to join the club criticising Rosberg's 10-second penalty for overtaking Kimi Raikkonen. This punishment was completely out of place.

He caught Raikkonen napping and should be applauded and not condemned. This is racing and, if you look closely, he was ahead of Raikkonen when they touched so, if anything, it was Raikkonen that turned in on him and not the other way round.

Let racing happen. After all, that's what these guys are there to do and what the viewers want to see. If the stewards step in too often, we might as well allocate points after qualifying on Saturday. Let them race.

Sebastian Vettel also had a penalty that made a bit more sense. As the saying goes, it's very difficult to win a race in the first corner but it's damned easy to lose it. Vettel has proved that on too many occasions recently.

He was the first driver to criticise Daniil Kvyat earlier in the year, but if you look at the stats, Vettel has been involved in more first-corner scrapes than any other driver.

He's a four-time world champion and I rate him very highly, but he needs to tidy this problem up. Perhaps it's just the pressure of the sky-high expectations on his shoulders from Ferrari?

And then we have the other little matter of Red Bull not using team orders. Well, it might not have done it over the radio (although that's still debatable) but by both drivers being called in to pit in tandem under the last virtual safety car, that's effectively what happened.

Ricciardo was fitted with a new set of softs and Verstappen had to fit used softs. On top of that, he lost a little bit of time while queuing behind Ricciardo. This was the team trying to neutralise the battle.

It separated them for long enough for Riccarido to use his tyre advantage to the best effect.

Don't get me wrong, he was a very worthy winner and deserved it. But please, as a team don't take us for fools by telling us you are squeaky clean when it comes to ensuring the best-possible result for the team.

That's what teams are in F1 to do, to maximise the results. And as the Malaysian Grand Prix shows, that's true whether it's drivers fighting for a victory like Red Bull, or a team like Mercedes that won't go throwing away wins just for some nonsensical conspiracy theory.