Angry Rosberg tells Mercedes to improve

One small problem has cost Nico Rosberg big under the glaring Singapore floodlights.

Long before the five lights went out on the start gantry on Sunday, the former championship leader’s Mercedes crew was grappling with malfunctioning electronics on the steering wheel.

They never solved it.

"I had no hybrid power, no DRS. The gearbox was always changing two gears at once.

"I had hoped we could fix it at the pitstop, but in the end, nothing worked," Rosberg is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

In the end, his retirement was utterly catastrophic for his 22-point cushion against arch-rival Lewis Hamilton — who won the race.

The Briton now leads the championship by 3 points with just five races to go.

Rosberg could not hide his anger.

"I let out a lot in the cockpit," he admitted, revealing that boss Toto Wolff even found the need to apologise.

Rosberg says the Brackley based team, so utterly dominant in performance terms in 2014, needs to work harder on reliability.

"We have already had several problems with reliability this year," he insisted. "This is our weakness.

"We need to improve the car — it must be 100 per cent reliable," Rosberg added.