Esteban Gutierrez will switch to a different chassis in Bahrain after the one he used in Australia was damaged by the recovery crane following his collision with Fernando Alonso.
Alonso drove into the back of Gutierrez in Melbourne, triggering the violent accident which gave him broken ribs and has forced him to sit out this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix. Gutierrez has revealed the worst damage to his Haas came when the car was being recovered.
"There was a bit of damage on the rear, to the floor," said Gutierrez. "But I think the chassis was broken by the crane, just cracked. It's not ideal. I've a new chassis for here, which doesn't really make a difference."
Gutierrez refuted the suggestion his car lost power in the moments leading up to Alonso's crash.
"I heard there was a rumour that the engine lost power and this is not true. There is a characteristic but at that moment nothing like this happened, there was no loss of power or anything. We watched the video and it was quite clear.
"I was racing, obviously Fernando was as well. There was a misjudgement and the accident happened, luckily nothing happened in terms of health, there was no consequence in terms of health, but a big consequence in terms of result, which at that time in the race we were going at a very good rhythm, we had a small issue at the beginning of the race where I lost about 20 seconds in the engine. I had to back off and then I caught back up again."
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner says the chassis Gutierrez will use this weekend has already been on the car this year.
"We ran this chassis already at the test, this was our spare chassis," he said. "The one which he damaged in Melbourne came back yesterday, it arrived yesterday because we had to send it from Australia to England to get fixed and then it came back here."