Hamilton accuses team of sabotaging his Mercedes (Update)

UPDATE Video of Hamilton's car on fire. On his first lap at the Hungaroring, the 29-year-old slowed before crawling into the pit lane with smoke and flames bellowing out of the back of his Mercedes. His engineer tells him to jump out of the car.

07/26/14

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton's Formula 1 qualifying woes continued at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday when a fuel leak in Q1 caused his Mercedes car to burst in to flames.

Fire marshals attended to the fire when Hamilton stopped in the pit lane entry, but the damage to his car was extensive.

Hamilton was hugely disappointed with his second successive car problem in qualifying, having suffered brake failure in Q1 at last weekend's German Grand Prix.

"I think it is getting to the point where it is beyond bad luck," said Hamilton, who will start 21st on the grid, as if to say that it's not bad luck but the German team sabotaging the Brits car. While he did not say that specifically, reading between the lines it sure appears that was his intent.

With German Sebastian Vettel rumored to be replacing Hamilton at Mercedes, there is no way they want the Brit to win the title and then have him take the title to a rival team as defending champion.

"I bailed out of that timed lap that I was doing and was going to do a second lap, and then something happened to my brakes," he said.

"Something in the brake system failed. I had to engage some systems, and then the engine just died.

"I was right next to the pit lane entry so I thought I could roll back [to the garage] but then I looked in the mirror and realized I was on fire.

"It was on fire but I was still trying to get to the garage. I thought maybe we could still do something."