Haas' promising British Grand Prix prospects dissipated at the outset on Sunday when Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean made contact during a chaotic opening lap.
Shortly after the start, the skirmish up ahead at Silverstone's Turn 3 between Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton forced the Haas pair to take avoiding action, but in doing so they made contact with each other!
Both drivers survived the encounter but Magnussen's damaged floor hindered the Dane's race, although he still secured a ninth-place finish.
"Three points-scoring finishes in a row is pretty good, but I wouldn’t say I’m ecstatic about it, as it should be a lot more. I think we lost quite a few points," rued team boss Guenther Steiner.
"We need to go away and evaluate what actually happened at turn 3 and avoid this for the future.
"Romain apologised to Kevin, I guess he waited with his braking a little bit too long.
"There was a piece of floor missing [from Magnussen's car], you could see we lost downforce and the balance, he lost downforce on one side.
"I think they recovered pretty good once they got the tyres to work, just to deal with that."
Magnussen preferred not to elaborate on the first lap incident, choosing to focus on what had been salvaged despite his car's damage.
"We scored two points, and that’s all that matters," said the Dane.
"It was the best we could do today. It could have been better, and it should have been, but here we are. We still scored points."
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Grosjean's race was cut short after 37 laps when the Frenchman collided with Renault's Carlos Sainz, a contact the stewards ruled as a racing incident.
"At the beginning of the race with Kevin, I think it was a mistake from both of us," said Grosjean, reflecting on his afternoon.
"It shouldn’t happen, so we need to work on that to ensure it doesn’t happy anymore. That obviously cost us a lot of positions on the first corner.
"After that, with Carlos (Sainz), I haven’t studied the footage, to be fair. It felt like he turned in quite hard on the corner and didn’t give me much room on the inside.
"I tried to go on the brake to avoid a contact, but there was not much room for me to go. It’s a shame."
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