Nico Rosberg was critical of his Mercedes team after finishing third in a Malaysia Grand Prix that also saw team-mate Lewis Hamilton confused by mixed radio messages.
Sebastian Vettel stormed to victory in Sepang – his first since joining Ferrari – as strategy was Mercedes' undoing.
Hamilton received a radio message from technical director Paddy Lowe not intended for the reigning champion, suggesting he would be asked to pit late in the race.
The Briton snapped at the team for distracting him while cornering, having already publicly criticised them for putting him on the harder compound tyres until the end of the race.
Rosberg's confusion over new radio regulations was evident in qualifying as he asked for advice on which line to take on the dry track – though driver coaching is outlawed.
"The engineers are not in the race car, and they have their computer and their wonderful numbers and everything, and I have nothing, so I just struggle to understand what's going on," said Rosberg.
"Even for motivation for the head, you know, to stay on it, it's important to have some details and I was missing that a little bit in the race.
"We need to see what can be done there so I can have a bit of a better picture of what's going on.
"For example, I didn't understand straight at the first pitstop, I was closing on Lewis at some point, and then we made a pitstop, and I never saw him again and he disappeared into the distance.
"And how's that for motivation? That's not very good.
"Then it turns out he was on a different tyre, which I didn't know, so we need to look into all these things."