Kevin Magnussen says a suspension failure led to his puncture in FP2, something he expects to be fixed in time for the return to the track on Saturday.
After Felipe Massa triggered two red flags for identical left rear tyre punctures, which were caused by contact with bodywork, Magnussen returned to the pits with a similar looking failure of his own. Initially it seemed like it may have been caused by debris from Massa's car but Magnussen points to a failure on the Renault's suspension.
When asked if the team had got to the bottom of the issue, he replied: "It sounds like that, yes. It's being fixed and then we're ready tomorrow again. [It was] a suspension failure and then the tyre punctured after that. You sit down and the tyre hits the floor and then rips."
Magnussen had no warning the failure was about to occur but says it was not too difficult to control the car after it had happened.
"I was doing 310 [kmh] and I felt the car drop and start to dance around. No real warning in the corners or anything. It was fairly easy to control. It [failed] on a straight line, not in a corner, so I just lifted off and stopped the car."
The issue forced Magnussen to miss FP2 completely, losing valuable track time in the process. In Renault's pre-race preview the Dane had said he was hoping for a trouble-free weekend, something doubly important with rain forecast for Saturday.
When reminded of that, Magnussen said: "You don't always get what you want! If its wet [on Saturday] it is a big blow because we need to set the car up for the race -- it looks like it's going to be dry -- and I will have no idea what I'm going into the race with, which will be a little bit tough. That's what we have so we're just going to try our best."