Haas asks FIA for new F1 tyres after overnight Russian GP fire

The fire is believed to have started in the control box for a set of tyre blankets, in effect destroying the tyres that the blankets contained and also damaging a second neighbouring set, both of which were allocated to Kevin Magnussen.

Haas made a formal request to the FIA to be granted replacement sets on Friday morning.

The fire was spotted by a night security guard and extinguished by guards from various teams before it could spread.

"We don't know what happened yet, because it's all burned," team boss Gunther Steiner told Autosport.

"We cannot jump to a conclusion. I don't want to put any panic on to what actually happened, because we don't know.

"I think one security guard saw it, and then they all worked together to extinguish it.

"[It was] a lucky escape, and it's good that they worked together and caught it, because if tyres go on fire they are difficult to extinguish."

One rival team has questioned whether the blankets were turned up overnight, which is not the accepted practice, suggesting an advantage could be gained by curing the tyres.

Prescriptions from Pirelli that are enforced by the FIA state tyres can be kept at a "storage" temperature of 60C, before being heated to 80C for two hours, and then finally boosted to 110C in the last hour before the session.

Steiner denied that the blankets had been turned up.

"They were not used overnight," he said. "They were plugged in, otherwise there would have been no fire, but they were not turned up. They were just on standby.

"Now we'll have to unplug them at night. What they do normally is just come in in the morning and switch them on, everything is cabled up."