Haas boss Guenther Steiner said the incident which saw his team's driver Romain Grosjean crash out of FP2 in Sepang "shouldn't happen" on a modern-day race circuit.
Grosjean's car made contact with a drain cover which had been dislodged from its normal position on the kerbs of Turn 13 by Valtteri Bottas' Mercedes and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari moments earlier. The drain tore the right rear tyre from Grosjean's car and sent him spinning out into the wall, prematurely ending the session. The French driver walked away unhurt.
Steiner did not hide his frustration at the incident in Friday's team principals' press conference and pointed out how bad the incident might have been if it happened in the race.
"From his point of view he's OK, thank God he didn't get hurt or anything," Steiner said. "In my opinion, things like this in 2017 shouldn't happen on a permanent circuit, they shouldn't happen on any circuit.
"This is in my opinion not acceptable, it is not up to the standards. I have not spoken to anybody but the next thing what we need to make sure is how to improve that doesn't happen again in the race, because in the race this would have been a bigger disaster -- if a few cars go over it and a cover comes up. I'm still not thinking it was completely true, what actually happened, to end up in this situation.
The FIA have re-welded the drain in question and will check every other installation on the Sepang circuit before FP3 on Saturday morning. Race director Charlie Whiting played down the chances of the incident hampering the rest of the weekend's schedule.
The attention of Steiner and Haas will now turn to Grosjean's car, though the extent of the damage is not yet known.
"In a few hours hopefully we know more," Steiner continued. "The damage on the car is very big. I don't know exactly what it is because the car came back just five minutes before I had to get here so they hadn't taken the parts off to see if the chassis is damaged as well. Once we know that we'll see what we can do tomorrow but we need to be sure all the drain covers stay in place tomorrow."