Haas 'heartbreak' at double DNF

Haas were "heartbroken" after Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were forced to retire from the Australian Grand Prix with identical issues within three laps of each other. The pair had been running fourth and fifth, but failures in pit-stops cost them race finishes and the team a hefty fine.

Magnussen was particularly impressive, jumping Max Verstappen off the line and then holding him at bay, the Red Bull sent into a spin at turn one as Verstappen' frustrations grew.

Grosjean also had the other Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo at arm's length as Haas appeared to be making good on their pre-season billing as best of the rest behind the big three teams.

However, both cars' left-rear tyre failed to attach properly during their pit-stops and meekly rolled to a stop shortly after leaving the pits. The team was fined $5000 per car for an unsafe release from the pits.

Magnussen had spoken of his delight at besting both of his former teams - McLaren and Renault - in qualifying and was crestfallen by Sunday's result.

"A very tough one to swallow for the whole team with both cars not finishing in such good positions with so much anticipation coming up this race," said Magnussen.

"Being in such a good position with both cars, it's just so heart-breaking to finish like that. We will get on top again and we will fight back and do it all again."

Grosjean's retirement prompted a Virtual Safety Car period which proved crucial to Sebastian Vettel taking victory from Lewis Hamilton.

The Frenchman was baffled by the issue cropping up at Albert Park after a positive winter.

"Today I had great pace. I am sure I could have stayed a bit more with the front-runners if I had been in front of Kevin earlier in the race," he said. "We will analyse everything, understand what happened exactly, come back stronger as we always do.

"Right now everyone is down and we need to analyse everything to make sure if it's a problem with the guns, or a problem with the mechanics. We didn't have any problems in winter testing so it's a bit strange.

"It's a lot of points lost today, but if we can repeat that performance over and over, we are going to forget that one very quickly."