Lewis Hamilton cut a frustrated figure as he blamed reliability fears for a tepid drive to fifth during the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Briton has won six times in Montreal during the career and went into this weekend having won the previous three years at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

However, at no stage did the Mercedes driver look a real threat for the win over the three days, only managing fourth on the grid after an error-strewn qualifying on Saturday and then slipping behind Daniel Ricciardo in the race to score his worst finish without retiring in P5.

A possible reason for the lack of competitiveness was a decision taken by his team to not introduce a new engine in Canada, forcing him to race on an old unit that had completed the first six races.

And niggling problems early on in the Grand Prix, not only caused Hamilton to pit earlier than planned but also caused doubts to creep in.

“I’m super grateful that I finished,” he was quoted by PlanetF1 afterwards.

“I’m just so happy because all of a sudden at the start I was down on power. My engine was over temperature and I couldn’t get them down.

“I just thought it was going to fail and every single lap I was on the edge just waiting for that power to drop away.

“It kept dropping and coming back and was like ‘jeez’. I could have lost a lot more points today.”

What was interesting is, despite his comments, Lewis was known to be using full power in the closing laps as he tried to close down Ricciardo for P4

Also on a somewhat unrelated note, given that a quality issue was blamed for Mercedes not bringing a new engine for the Montreal event, the 33-year-old expressed his disillusionment with the emphasis on engine durability in today's F1.

“I hope they don’t go to two next year as it’s just going to get ridiculous,” Hamilton told Sky Sports, with drivers limited to just three of some components this season.

“It is definitely more fun when you have more engines. The fact that the world championship could be swayed by reliability, I don’t think anyone wants to see that.

“You want actual true performance, so the sport is going in the wrong direction, in my opinion.”

He could well find some fans with that argument at Red Bull as that team has long lobbied for an easing of the engine restrictions.

With Sebastian Vettel going on to take victory on Sunday too, it also means Hamilton has lost the championship lead once again, with the Ferrari driver one point clear heading to France.