Hamilton, 39, had qualified in the third position but was left frustrated after his team asked him to start with soft tyres, while he wanted to use medium instead.

"I battled as hard as I could to fight to go on the medium tyre, but the team continued to suggest that I started on the soft ... everyone was on medium," Hamilton said later at an event.

The team's technical director James Allison acknowledged the mistake, saying it ruined the race for Hamilton, who is sixth in the championship with 174 points, while Red Bull's Max Verstappen leads with 331.

However, Hamilton took to social media on Saturday to say the soft tyre strategy was a bold and risky move that could have given him an advantage at the start of the race but did not pay off.

"I know there has been a lot of chat around the last one and our strategy in Singapore, which just didn't work. When that happens, it's natural to be frustrated and easy for me to speak out in that frustration," the Briton wrote on the Instagram app.

--Reuters--