Gene Haas said the crash for Romain Grosjean during the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend was ‘absurd’ as it cost a near fortune through no fault of either driver or team.
Grosjean was driving at speed through turn thirteen of the Sepang International Circuit when he hit a dislodged drain cover, which immediately punctured his tyre and heavily damaged his Haas F1 Team car, with the Frenchman hitting the tyre barrier on the outside of the corner as a result.
Despite team owner Haas admitting that it was out of their control, the cost of the incident ran into the hundreds of thousands, especially as Grosjean was running new, recently developed parts that were written off.
“It was just one of those things,” said Haas to Motorsport.com. “You have enough problems in this business with all kinds of events occurring, and all of a sudden that seems kind of absurd, a little bit of a drain cover at a race track, something that we have no control over, destroys one of our cars.
“I think it kind of ruins your weekend. A front nose is a hundred thousand, a rear wing is a hundred thousand, and the bits in between are in the hundreds of thousands.
“It’s extremely expensive. We know we have to have those things in races and practices, but where they occur outside your control, it’s just absurd.”
