Haas still investigating drivers' Austrian GP brake issues
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says the US outfit is investigating the brake issues that put a premature end to the race of both its drivers in Austria last weekend.
Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were sidelined respectively on lap 24 and 49 of the 71-lap race, with their retirements caused by the same issue: overheating brakes.
Steiner was at a loss to understand why the problem had suddenly emerged as there had been no indication of soaring brake temperatures in practice or qualifying.
"The brake issue, I don't know why it came up, we're still investigating," Steiner said, quoted by Motorsport.com.
"They overheated pretty early. We needed to manage it to get to the end of the race, but we didn't think it was this dramatic, that they will break or they will not last.
"Romain had the same thing as Kevin, and we were just calling in on the radio when he had the failure because we saw that it had gone extreme, his wear as well.
"So they just wore out, due to overheating, so we need to find out why we had all this overheating.
"Brakes are always an issue here, but we didn't expect it to be this big of an issue that you cannot finish the race."
©Haas
Steiner reckons the excessive temperatures may have been caused by a lack of cooling, although the Italian said that Haas had not taken any "unnecessary risks" in that department.
"Cooling the brakes, it's got a dynamic influence on the car, and therefore you go with as little as possible, but it is just an estimate. You make how much cooling you need," he said.
"For sure you go to the limit of what you think but you you try not to go over the limit for aero reasons, because cooling normally shouldn't be an issue, but if you cool more, you lose aero performance.
"We didn't take an unnecessary risk because we didn't expect it to be this bad."
Beyond the brake issues, Steiner was reasonably satisfied with the performance level of the team's VF20, although Grosjean and Magnussen were at odds when it came to assessing their pace.
While the Frenchman was concerned by his mount's speed, believing it was the "slowest car" out there, Magnussen labeled his pace as "decent" before his demise.
"I think it wasn't bad, we could keep up because we had to start to really lift and coast very early on from the first laps because we saw immediately that we are running hot with the brakes," he said.
"So that doesn't help not only performance on lap time, but also to get the tyre to work good, and your brake balance you cannot change because otherwise it deteriorates.
"Kevin was happier than Romain was to be honest, so I think we have to build on that one and see that you can get a race to the end, because I think we could run with the cars which were around us."
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