Romain Grosjean

Was drafted into F1 with not an ounce of testing and replaced Nelson Piquet Jr in the middle of 2009 when he was possibly on route to becoming the GP2 Champion that season, which went to Nico Hulkenburg.

In his 7 races in F1 he failed to impress and the no in-season testing rule didn't help his course. Plus having Fernando Alonso as his teammate couldn't have helped either.

In 2010 Grosjean went to do Auto GP, before returning back to GP2 on July 20th for a few guess appearances for DAM'S. But in 2011 Grosjean was given a full-time drive by DAM'S for the 2011 GP2 series and went on to become the 2011 GP2 Champion.

My question is will Grosjean get a drive for 2012? Plus how far can this guy go if he gets into F1?
 
Click to expand
It was late Keke but as said in commentary was all above board. Seen Lewis do the same thing.

As for Grosjean. He did a top job today. Only person keeping Seb honest.
 
The change in Romain Grosjean and why the Frenchman is now one of F1's brightest stars
Sky Sports F1's commentary expert Mark Hughes explains how things have finally come together for F1's former wild child
By Mark Hughes. Last Updated: October 15, 2013 1:00pm

One year ago Mark Webber stormed down to the Lotus paddock base at Suzuka to bawl out Romain Grosjean for ruining his race with a silly collision on the first lap, telling him he wasn't going to get to stay around in F1 if he didn't control himself better in the car.

Webber subsequently referred to him as "the first-lap nutcase". One year on Webber and Grosjean finished second and third after a terrific fight for virtually the whole of the race. This comes on the back of a super-competitive and consistent second half of the season for Grosjean and it's clear Lotus's former wild man has matured into one of the best drivers on the grid....
 
After an over-enthusiastic 'settling in period' (and we have seen that from a lot of youngsters this century), he is finally growing up, plus he has been released from Kimi's shadow.

If he manages to maintain this degree of maturity, he has a good chance of scoring good points for the rest of the season.
 
I think it's symptomatic of today's F1 standards that rookies are expected to perform faultlessly from the word go, which I find a bit strange.
The accepted wisdom used to be that an F1 newcomer needed a couple of years in the sport for their potential to be accurately assessed, so I was surprised to hear Brundle at the start of 2012 commenting "It's rare in F1 to be given a second chance" on the subject of Grosjean's return.

A "second chance"? Considering he was parachuted in 2009 into a team in turmoil halfway though a season for barely more than half-a-dozen Grand Prix in one of worst cars Renault produced in F1 I don't think he had much of a first?!....

It used to be fairly standard for Grand Prix drivers to take a few years to start erforming something close to their maximum potential but the culture in F1 has changed.

A young Nigel Mansell would never get a chance these days.
 
Last edited:
Incubus said:
I think it's symptomatic of today's F1 standards that rookies are expected to perform faultlessly from the word go, which I find a bit strange....
Click to expand
I can't recall the driver but a season or two ago, some retired F1 driver of note (maybe Sir Jackie?) remarked that the most cost effective measure to improve the results of a fledgling racing programme was to hire driver mentors. Williams hired Alex Wurz in that role last season but I'm not sure he's still on staff.

Now they sort of toss a rookies in the deep end of the pool, then hand them an anvil.

Mark Webber, who last season labeled Grosjean a 'first lap nut-case,' seconds the motion that 2013 edition Romain is much improved.
 
I'm certainly not ready to say Grosjean has permanently turned a corner. He's had a couple decent races but still hasn't achieved the maximum. And the guy has a nasty habit of making very late jinks across the circuit when he's being passed.
 
Grosjean has proved that he is potentially an excellent driver. He is generally hanging on to a team-mate who is absolutely superb. I don't think he's yet consistent enough to be amongst the very best, but Vettel sure did have a lot of collisions in 2009...
 
Roman is fine when he's not in too much traffic or out on his own. I do din a remark the Johnny Herbert made in Japan a little worrying though. Herbert mentioned the fact that Roman is looking around/about him a lot more. That appears to be how he is dealing with his spatial awareness problem. Unfortunately that will not be good enough in the heat of a really frantic battle. Still, if he can stay out of trouble, with a car that can do the business, he should survive and do better than some of the other young bloods on the grid.
 
*Holds hand up*

I've always thought RoGro had it in him to be a front runner. He's been competitive in every series he's ever driven in so I didn't see why not.

I was very surprised when just a couple of races ago some people were calling for him to be dropped from Team Enstone to be replaced by Massa!
 

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