Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has revealed a freak hydraulics failure was the cause of Kevin Magnussen's retirement from Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix.
Magnussen had been running just outside of the points in 11th and was closing in on Williams' Lance Stroll when his Haas car's hydraulics suddenly failed, forcing him out of the race. Steiner says this occurred when the hydraulic pipe to the Dane's DRS got cut through after rubbing against another part of the car.
"A hydraulic pipe was shaved through," Steiner explained. "The pipe was going to the DRS system and he lost all the hydraulic fluid, so that was it. He lost all the hydraulics, the gearshift didn't work and there was no oil any more.
"It looks like the pipe was touching on a washer and after a while they bump [together] and it shaved the pipe. It was a new installation with a new rear wing which we put on Baku, which was why it didn't happen before. We will fix it."
Steiner feels without the issue there was no doubt that Haas could have recorded what would have been its second two-car points finish in Formula One.
"He [Magnussen] was going to finish ninth or 10th, we were right on it so it wasn't his lucky day. The car was overheating early on, and if everything had been normal then we could have attacked more -- but we had to let it go a little bit because this piece of Styrofoam had got caught in the cooling ducts after the first lap."
On the other side of the Haas garage, Magnussen's teammate Romain Grosjean provided the team with some joy after finishing best of the rest behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in sixth, sealing the American outfit's joint-best result of the season.
"What else can you do?" Steiner said. "We were best of the rest, and that is what it is. Fantastic from Romain -- he drove a calm, solid race and it was our best result of the year. We'll have some lows after this, but we'll enjoy what we've got and keep on digging for more points."