Guenther Steiner admits Haas F1 Team are unsure over what happened with both of their cars at the Malaysian Grand Prix.
After a strong qualifying session where Romain Grosjean qualified twelfth and Esteban Gutierrez thirteenth. This performance failed to reach the Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit as both drivers failed to see the chequered flag.
Grosjean had a good start after jumping up three positions, when he took advantage of the opening-lap incident between Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg On Lap nine though Grosjean applied the brakes to his VF-16 but his pedal went to the floor, leading to the Frenchman being sent off track and deep into the gravel trap.
Gutierrez sustained a right-rear tyre puncture after Kevin Magnussen hit him from behind when Gutierrez braked hard to avoid both Rosberg and Vettel on the opening lap. With an imminent pit-stop, Gutierrez tried his best to climb the grid. On Lap 41 though, the Mexican lost his left-front wheel. Leading to his retirement and joining Grosjean.
With the Japanese Grand Prix next week, Haas will try to understand what resulted in the brake failure with Grosjean and wheel failure with Gutierrez.
“After we saw light at the end of the tunnel yesterday after qualifying,” said Steiner. “Where I think we did a pretty good job, it got dark again today.
“We don’t really know yet what happened with both of the cars. One had a brake failure and the other, obviously, lost a wheel. We’ll have to see what exactly failed with the brakes on Romain’s car. We lost a wheel on Esteban’s car, but we’re not sure yet why.
“The pit stop seemed to be ok and he got going. We need to see if a mechanical part failed or if it wasn’t tight, but we don’t know yet. Obviously, we’re moving on to Japan. We’ll try to put ourselves in a better position again there.”
