Haas fined for loose wheel during race

The Haas team were fined €5,000 for an unsafe release after Esteban Gutierrez's flew off his car during the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Gutierrez's right wheel worked loose on lap 39 while entering the heavy braking zone at Turn 9. The mishap forced him to retire.

The FIA race stewards reported: "Having reviewed the audio from the car, the available data and spoken to the driver and team concerned, the Stewards were satisfied that the driver Gutierrez did not know that he was driving the car in an unsafe condition.

"It appears that a mechanical failure led to the wheel being able to be tightly fitted to the car while not actually attached correctly. An additional failure occurred in turn one under braking, but the wheel was still retained in an abnormal way until it appears that the failure of the rim blew the wheel past the retention devices."

The stewards directed Haas to provide a report on the cause of failure and the fail safe proceduires they will implement to prevent a repeat of such an incident in the future.