Wolff confirms both Mercedes had switch-change issues

Lewis Hamilton toiled to gain full power for many laps in the second half of the race, while Nico Rosberg only took a handful of laps to solve his issues.

"We had a problem on both cars," said Wolff. "It was the configuration of some switches. Lewis's problem came a bit earlier, Nico's a couple of laps later.

"There was a way of changing the switches on the dashboard, but by regulations we are not allowed to communicate with the drivers. And this caused a bit of confusion and it took a while on Lewis's car to reset.

"Nico was in a bit more of a fortunate situation as he had done a switch change before, and he just changed it back basically a couple of laps later.

"Lewis was trying to figure out what it was, and it took 12 laps. The power came back but it was too late."

Hamilton bewildered by problems

Hamilton admitted he had "no idea" of how to fix the issue, which blighted his chances of improving from fifth place.

"I had no idea," said Hamilton. "There is like 16 different engine positions, and in those engine positions there is like 20 positions. So I had no idea what problem I had, just low power."

When asked how he fixed it with eight laps to go, he replied: "I didn't do anything, it just fixed itself."

Hamilton admitted he turned his engine down at the end, as he had no chance of catching those ahead.

"I was 14 second behind the guys in front with like seven, eight laps to go, and 10, 12 seconds ahead of the guy behind," he said.

"So I just saved the engine, remembering that I don't have as many engines as the guys in front for the rest of the year. So I was trying to see if I can get more out this engine maybe."