SPIELBERG, Austria -- Kevin Magnussen is convinced his "annoying and frustrating" suspension failure in Q1 cost Haas a spot on the third row of the grid.
Magnussen and teammate Romain Grosjean have showed good pace all weekend and looked a good bet for Q3 when qualifying begun. After setting a lap good enough to progress to Q2 in the opening session, Magnussen slowed with a rear suspension failure.
While the Dane had to watch Q2 from the garage, Grosjean made the top-ten shootout and beat both Force Indias to eighth -- which will become seventh once Lewis Hamilton serves a gearbox change penalty. Magnussen is certain he could have qualified ahead of his teammate without the issue, which would have left him sixth on the grid.
When asked where he could have qualified without the issue, he replied: "Well, just look at where Romain qualified today. I've been in front of him the whole weekend so in front of him would have seventh and then Lewis had his penalty so it would have been one place higher. It is very annoying and frustrating but that is racing sometimes."
Grosjean suffered a puncture on the kerbs at the final sequence of corners on Friday, but Magnussen is convinced his car was on the road when the failure occurred.
"I didn't hit any kerbs. I was on the exit kerb of Turn 3 but it doesn't have those big [yellow kerbs], they are the normal red and white ones."
Team boss Guenther Steiner says the cause of the failure is currently unknown and that an investigation will take place overnight.
"We are looking into data to see if anything to why the suspension broke. It obviously is going over the kerbs it's broke but he did not do anything different to the other car, nothing different. Maybe just one of those things, the suspension, the parts which were on it were almost new. The parts, maybe it just collapsed I don't know. We are looking into it to see if we can find something suspicious but up to now we haven't."
Haas' pace on a heavy-braking, power-sensitive circuit came as a surprise to many observers, including Magnussen himself. Despite his frustration at suffering a car issue, Magnussen was quick to praise engine supplier Ferrari.
"I didn't believe we would be that quick and competitive. I was hoping we would be that competitive and that was our true pace which came as unexpected. I was keeping my feet on the ground and keeping my expectations low but it is representative. It was a surprise in Q1 [when it continued].
"I don't know the reasons but it shows very good for Ferrari because this is an engine and a power sensitive circuit and the Ferrari is competitive so it shows well on the engine and proves what the engine is capable of and what it can do. Maybe it is also to do with the tyres as we have been able to make them work and maybe other teams didn't.
"It is hard to say as we didn't expect this weekend to be our best weekend so far in terms of competitiveness which it has been. Nothing has gone to plan a lot. Here we look quite competitive and then we break the suspension for unknown reasons. This seasons seems to throw up a lot of surprises."