Mercedes says that a foreign substance in Nico Rosberg’s steering column led to the problem that forced him to retire from the Singapore GP.
The team said via its Twitter feed: “Forensic analysis has revealed that the steering column electronic circuits were contaminated with a foreign substance.
“The contamination was not visible and did not manifest itself until Sunday as Nico went to the grid.
“The result was an intermittent short circuit in the electronic circuits meaning Nico could not command clutch or engine settings.
“Fresh parts will be used at the forthcoming races. Our hard work on reliability processes will continue at the same intensive level.”
Later Mercedes added: “To clarify, the contaminant was a substance used in normal pre-event servicing of the component,” in effect confirming that an employee had simply screwed up somewhere along the line…
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
I wonder will any of the conspiracy theorists claim it was Lewis or that Mercedes did it to prevent Lewis going to Ferrari, McLaren or Mariokart. 🙂
Wario sabotaging Niko’s car? Sounds reasonable. 🙂
Two chicane drive-throughs at Monza and a DNF at Singapore. Punishment for hitting Lulu at Spa is now complete and Britney will be allowed to race again in Japan. 😉
LULU,BRITNEY RONMON you are a poet.and what do you think about the 13 races where an average 2 seconds per race have been lost by “lulu” in the pits? 10 out of 13races he lost 2 seconds combined every race?your opinion??
Very strange that Lewis got not 1 but 4 of the same and it appears he did not get such attention or excuses.for a man with 7 victories versus 4 to Rosberg,and 4DNF versus 2 very strange behavior from “the media”or shall we say from the “desinformation”gang???.
There is no conspiracy here at all.HOWEVER,there is a preplanned orchestrated DNF for Hamilton in abu dhabi finale to let rosberg get double points and become world champion.the designed saboteur has been identified at mercedes and possibily will be named in susuka.stay tuned gang, sters
I think to say an employee had “screwed up” is possibly a very unfair comment.
Nothing happens on a F1 car these days unless its authorised by the engineering department. I would suspect that pre-race run up would include sparying a silicone lubricant (similar to WD-40) down the colomn before the steering wheel was re-fitted to avoid loom/wire chaffing. In this instance I suspect the chaffing had already happened and the lubricant was the conduit between the wires and a short. Certainly not a mechanic screw up if that was indeed what happened.
did you make such romantic comments when Hamilton ‘s car failed in Australia?and Germany?and?and?4 times??/