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Haas hopes to be compensated for $750,000 drain-cover-crash damage

Haas is hoping to be financially compensated for the estimated $750,000 (£500,000) worth of damage to Romain Grosjean's car caused by a faulty drain system during the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend.

Grosjean was pitched into a scary spin and a heavy collision with a barrier when his car hit a cover which had come loose when other cars had passed by earlier. The incident prompted the FIA to re-weld the drain in question and conduct checks on the remaining installations around the circuit.

The crash left the Haas car with extensive damage and, given the circumstances, the team was allowed to break overnight curfew to carry out repairs as the events were "entirely and clearly beyond the control of the driver and the competitor". That allowed Haas to get the car out for FP3 on Saturday and the car completed the weekend.

The issue was even raised in the Friday evening drivers' briefing, snippets of which were filmed and uploaded to F1's official website. In it, championship leader Lewis Hamilton asks FIA race director Charlie Whiting who is expected to foot the bill in a situation where neither team nor driver was at fault, pointing out that the American team is on the lower end of the F1 budget scale.

Though it is currently unclear who would pay any bill, Haas has made enquiries of its own.

When asked during his post-race media session if the team had raised the issue of compensation to the FIA, team boss Guenther Steiner replied: "Oh yeah absolutely, you have to.

"It was completely out of our hands. I cannot say 'OK we now let three quarters of a million go because somebody forgot to weld something in', it's all good. We pay a fee to come here and it's like, guys [come on]...."

"We discuss it, they were very professional about it. They have insurance so let's see what we can do."

A spokesman told ESPN the $750,000 quoted by Steiner is a rough "ballpark" figure and that the team won't know the total overall cost for a while.