The missing factor that Grosjean developed too late to transform his F1 career

To a certain generation of Formula 1 viewers he’s the ‘man on fire’ in Bahrain 2020 or the target of Haas team boss Guenther Steiner’s colourful invective. But Romain Grosjean was also the only person to challenge a dominant Sebastian Vettel in the latter half of 2013, and briefly a potential championship contender. He sat down with OLEG KARPOV to reflect on his grand prix career

Updated Jan 8, 2024, 4:04 PM

Those who worked with him will insist that Romain Grosjean had the speed to win races in F1. “On his day, he was as fast as anyone out there – nobody could drive better than him,” says his former engineer Ayao Komatsu, who worked with Grosjean throughout his entire F1 career and helped him achieve his 10 podiums. “But it’s just that not every day was his day.”

Many people probably won’t remember his career for those podiums – they were all achieved, as he puts it, in the “pre-Drive to Survive era”. For many ‘new’ F1 fans, he’s the guy who became a figure of fun after his opening-lap spin in Spain in 2018, or, most likely, the one who had that crash in Bahrain in 2020.