Freak failure caused Haas driver Magnussen's Austrian GP retirement

The Haas Formula 1 team says a freak failure in which a washer cut through a hydraulic pipe was the cause of Kevin Magnussen's retirement from the Austrian Grand Prix

Magnussen was in contention for a points finish at the Red Bull Ring when his car's hydraulics failed.

Team principal Gunther Steiner has revealed this was created by the hydraulic pipe to Magnussen's DRS getting cut through after rubbing on another part of the car.

"A hydraulic pipe was shaved through," he said.

"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."

Steiner suspects that the unprecedented issue could be related to a new rear wing design that Haas put on the car in Baku.

"It was a new installation with a new rear wing which we put on Baku, which was why it didn't happen before," he said. "We will fix it."

Steiner had no doubts that Haas could have achieved a two-car points finish as Magnussen was battling just outside the top 10 - even though he had been hindered in the opening stages by overheating caused by a piece of trackside debris getting lodged in his radiator.

"He was going to finish ninth or 10th, we were right on it," said Steiner.

"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.

So it wasn't his lucky day."

Magnussen's team-mate Romain Grosjean did at least give Haas something to smile about with a sixth-place finish, as the leader of the pack behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

"What else could we do?" said Steiner. "We were best of the rest, and that is what it is.

"Romain did a good job and everything went fine."