The incident came just 24 hours after the American crashed heavily on slicks on a drying track having made Q3 for the first time in his rookie season.
Sargeant stayed out on slicks in the wet early stages of the race and managed to survive the tricky conditions while losing a lot of time.
With the track dry he was running in last place when he speered off the road after touching the inside kerb at Turn 8 on lap 15.
In the immediate aftermath, he believed that something had gone wrong at the front of the car, telling the team: “I don’t know what happened, man. Something failed on the front right when I hit the kerb.”
Vowles confirmed that the crash was sparked by a hydraulic issue that affected the steering.
"On review of everything, it's very early days, but what I can explain is this,” he told Autosport. “There's an apex kerb, he ran over the kerb multiple times.
“It wasn't the first time of the race, we can find at least three or four laps before then he was there as well. He also ran over it on Friday.
“And this particular point there's quite a large spike of load through the floor, and that ends up in a situation where as soon as he hits it, we lose all hydraulic pressure.
“When you lose hydraulic pressure in an F1 car, you have no steering and no other things. So he wouldn't have known that in the milliseconds that happened.
“But it's not the same circumstances as before [in qualifying]. We need to understand that from our perspective."
Source: Autosport