Lewis Hamilton does not understand how his engine has suffered identical failures at successive races after encountering an engine issue during qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix.
Hamilton will start Sunday's race from 10th on the grid after being unable to compete in Q3 with an identical issue -- a '"freak failure" on the MGU-H -- to the one which saw him drop out of qualifying early in China. The failure occurred on the new ERS he took after that China failure, meaning he is now onto his third engine, with five available to each driver before incurring grid penalties.
The Mercedes completed the most mileage over winter testing and has built a reputation for being bulletproof in terms of reliability and Hamilton admits he wants to get to the bottom of how it has suffered the same issue twice.
Asked if he will work to understand the issue, Hamilton replied: "Of course, I'm very, very curious as to what is going on so I've asked them to give me as much detail as possible. We did 800 kilometres a day in testing, and the car was faultless. Then all of a sudden two times in a row, the same thing, that doesn't happen for us.
"We say we understood what happened in the first race [China] so I would have thought we would have learnt from that, but obviously not so more work needs to go in. Now we've got another engine going in, it's [key to understand it] not going to happen on that one. So what's pretty key is that we understand what it is, more so than before, and try and be careful in how we pick out all the engines we have for the rest to the year because obviously I'm have only three for the rest of the year, so I'm going to have another penalty at some point. But I'll do the best job I can."
Hamilton already finds himself 36 points behind Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, who was able to take a comfortable pole in the absence of the three-time world champion. Hamilton has been calm about his various issues and collisions from the first three races and admits there's little more he can do than stay positive.
Asked if he felt sad or angry at the latest turn of events, a downbeat Hamilton said: "I don't feel either of those right now. I don't know what the word is, I can't really describe what I feel right now, it's not a great feeling...
"For sure, it's not easy, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm doing everything I can to do the job the way I'm supposed to do it to the best of my abilities and these things are just unfortunate."
However, the world champion is determined to stay positive.
"I've had darker days than this. This is a pretty light day! I've been racing for 23 years, I don't know how many races I've done but it's a lot. I've had seasons good and bad and through those experiences I'm able to have that point of view and approach to life which has helped me become a three-time world champion. There are good lessons that I've learned and I have every plan to use those experiences and tools I learnt to get those experiences to get the fourth, that's what I'm going for."
Hamilton also received a reprimand on Saturday evening for an incident which saw him leave the track at Turn 2 and not rejoin in the correct fashion.
The FIA said: "Car 44 did not keep to the left of the red and white polystyrene block in the run-off area in Turn 2 at 15:08."