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Steiner seething over Grosjean crash

Cape Town - Haas boss Guenther Steiner has said the loose drain cover which caused Romain Grosjean to crash is an incident that should not happen on "any circuit" in 2017. 

Grosjean was thrown into the wall once his tyre became shredded after making contact with a loose drain cover in FP2, which was red-flagged with 15 minutes remaining. 

The race stewards have spent the rest of the afternoon in Sepang re-welding the drain covers to ensure a repeat does not happen on Saturday but Steiner has said a situation like this should never happen. 

"From his point of view he's OK, thank God he didn't get hurt or anything," Steiner said.

"In my opinion, things like this in 2017 shouldn't happen on a permanent circuit, they shouldn't happen on any circuit. 

"This is in my opinion not acceptable, it is not up to the standards. I have not spoken to anybody but the next thing what we need to make sure is how to improve that doesn't happen again in the race, because in the race this would have been a bigger disaster - if a few cars go over it and a cover comes up. 

"I'm still not thinking it was completely true, what actually happened, to end up in this situation."

Steiner also said that a big repair job awaits the Haas mechanics after a first assessment of Grosjean's wrecked car. 

He added: "In a few hours hopefully we know more. The damage on the car is very big. 

"I don't know exactly what it is because the car came back just five minutes before I had to get here so they hadn't taken the parts off to see if the chassis is damaged as well. 

"Once we know that we'll see what we can do tomorrow but we need to be sure all the drain covers stay in place tomorrow."

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