Haas boss Guenther Steiner says Romain Grosjean lost crucial tyre telemetry at the Japanese Grand Prix after a fire inside the VF-18 burnt some wires.
Grosjean started the race from fifth position and maintained his advantage atop the midfield pack, though expectedly lost spots to Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel.
Grosjean went on to classify in eighth place and Steiner revealed that the Frenchman had been hindered by a lack of data due to the fire.
“He had an issue on his car and was saying he could not go straight and had a problem on the rear suspension and they [the mechanics] showed me how much it was moving,” said Steiner.
“In the beginning we had no telemetry of tyre temperatures because we had a fire because some oil came out and it burnt the wires down so we had no data on tyre temperature, tyre pressure and a lot of things missing.
“So when he said on the straights the car is pulling, we thought that maybe he had picked up a puncture from the debris from [Kevin] Magnussen.
“But we didn’t so we continued but for the whole race it was not easy to steer and locked a lot easier for us.
“There was an issue on his car with the telemetry and we didn’t know the tyre temperature and we all know how important that is. Only on his car.”
Grosjean held seventh but lost out to Force India’s Sergio Perez at a Virtual Safety Car restart, and Steiner reckons the loss of position was pure misfortune.
“I think Romain with the double yellow it is very difficult to know what’s on the track in front of you,” he said.
“But there was nothing wrong with what Perez did he was just on the case and sometimes in VSC you can be in a better position or worse by the regulation mini sectors.
“He was good there, had the tyres and the better traction and out of the chicane overtook him.”
Grosjean’s eighth place nonetheless enabled Haas to reduce Renault’s advantage in the scrap for fourth in the Constructors’ Championship to just eight points.
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