Hamilton’s father and manager, Anthony Hamilton, had contacted Max Mosley, president of the FIA, last Friday to express his anger that his son had been led by his McLaren team into telling lies in the aftermath of the race. He told Mosley that the world champion was thinking of quitting not only the team but the sport.

While that threat may have receded in light of McLaren's decision to attach the full blame for the incident to their sporting director Dave Ryan, an employee of 35 years, it shows just how scarred Hamilton was by the controversy.

After finishing a respectable seventh in the rain-affected Malaysian Grand Prix, Hamilton eschewed most of his media commitments and left as quickly as possible. He did not disagree that it had been the hardest week of his life. "Yeah, you could say that," Hamilton said. "You all know why. All I did was give it my best shot today and the results were not terrible."

Hamilton's disquiet is not helped by the fact that McLaren's new car, the MP4-24, is well behind the pace of its rivals. He has little realistic chance of defending his world title this year, nor does he see things improving when F1 reconvenes in China next week.

"I couldn't follow anyone today as everyone in front of me had much better downforce," Hamilton said. "All I could do was try to keep the car on the track. I hope we do make some improvements [before China] but we've got a huge amount to cover. It will be tough."

Hamilton's importance to McLaren is paramount and team principal Martin Whitmarsh will be sweating over these latest revelations. Whitmarsh wore a haggard look all weekend and has not ruled out resigning over his role in the scandal. However, he said that his future chiefly lay in the hands of his company's shareholders.

Alongside him, Norbert Haug, vice-president of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, who own a 40 per cent stake in McLaren, looked uncomfortable. "I am in permanent contact to Stuttgart, I am reporting to Dr Zetsche directly and of course we will sit down next week," he said. "I have full trust in Martin, just to point that out, but the whole affair is not what we want."