Doing his best to keep his emotions in check following another failure which will see him start at best from the fifth row of the grid on Sunday, depending on whether his team needs to change vital power unit components or even his whole engine, Lewis Hamilton still admitted to feeling "almost helpless" as his championship hopes took another battering.

“It’s not a great feeling, you’re almost helpless,” he told reporters. “We work so hard with my engineers and mechanics to get the car in a great position, we had great pace once again, and this happens unexpectedly.

"I feel helpless for my guys, because there’s not much I can do to uplift them," he admitted, "and there isn’t much they can do to uplift me. The goal is moving further and further away in the distance. I’m doing everything I can do.

"I don’t know if I believe in good luck and bad luck," he continued. "There is a logical reason most things happen. I can't really describe how I feel but it's not a great feeling.

"Trying to turn the negatives into positives, this is another big challenge and the challenge is becoming greater," he admitted. "Every challenge is an opportunity to rise, so I quite like that approach, even when it seems like its the darkest of days, there's always some light and as long as you focus on that there will be a brighter day up ahead. That's how I feel."

"It's a very bizarre situation," admitted team boss Toto Wolff, "because it looks like the same failure as China.

"It's very unfortunate for Lewis," he added. "He seems to have all the bad luck and the other side of the garage seems to have all the luck."

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