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?

 

[Mephistopheles]

I wonder why they didn't let Maldonado drive it..

 

[KekeTheKing]

Grosjean is how you say.....................Rubbish!!

 

[RasputinLives]

I think rubbish is a bit harsh. Stupid error yes. Rubbish no.

 

[Il_leone]

KekeTheKing He was good until he ran over Stevens and up to then a very good weekend's work spoiled

 

[KekeTheKing]

Romain has been making schoolboy errors since 2009.

Fenderman has done laudable work concerning his spatial awareness, or lack thereof, and the verdict is in. Completely hopeless!!

Compounding his pathetic effort on track is the way that he handled the Verstappen clash. When you live in a glass house you shouldn't throw a stone.

 

[RasputinLives]

Yeah. That just reactionary. Grosjean's errors and improvement have been well documented since his first terrible season and one very stupid error (that most of the field have made at some point or other by the way) does not transform him back into what he was.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Yes, Grosjean should have said that the Verstappen episode was his fault as he braked later than usual which led the driver behind him to get confused.

 

[Fenderman]

I thought RoGro was a real prospect when he was in the lower formulae and didn't really think too much of the odd prang or two but F1 has exposed an inherent weakness. Unfortunately, a less than adequate intuitive spacial awareness can only be partially mitigated by rigorous training to consciously compensate for it. Romain has clearly worked very hard on that and he is a much better driver for it. However, he is at a disadvantage to those who do not have to divert conscious brainpower to checking their surroundings. Out on his own in clear air it's not a problem. In traffic it's costly since he cannot afford to make instant, instinctive decisions. He has to consciously evaluate where everyone is around him, all the time.

Interestingly, another driver who has recently been exibiting similar issues is his team-mate. Maldonado has been making a habit of overtaking this season only to cut across and strike the bows of his opponents. I once thought that every time he did that it was intentional. Now I'm not so sure. How one team can employ two drivers with spacial awareness problems is more surprising to me than Romain's sterling efforts to compensate for his problem. At least he does work hard on it which is more than can be said for Pastor, methinks.

 

[Mephistopheles]

For those that think it isn't spacial awareness is a real thing and some are better at it than others, men are on average better at it than women, probably due to the hunter gatherer thing men had to go out and hunt for food making spacial awareness a necessity, Romain and Pastor probably couldn't catch a cold on a hunt let alone any food..

 

[Dash Racing]

The 'hunter gathererer' gender-divided labor thing is hogswash. Skeletal evidence of injuries in stone age humans suggests that women hunted as much as men did, and men gathered as much as women did.

Men are generally better at spatial awareness because they are nurtured into playing sports, such as soccer, where the skill is in high demand. Girls, meanwhile, are nurtured into tasks that do not require it. Now can we put that to bed again, please, we already went over this stupid gender divide and its inherent falsehood in the female F1 drivers thread.

 

[Mephistopheles]

That maybe true but all the evidence of men hunting and women looking after the family is a fact in many primitive societies all over the world finding females who may have hunted is not evidence that it was the norm for them to do so, all the evidence points to men being the hunters not least of which is their physical stature over women.

Why do you think it is that most women find it almost impossible to reverse park a car..

That last sentence was just me being me, no offence meant, or taken I hope, but the thing about women being safer drivers is true because they simply are not as aggressive as men, which is probably why a woman never has done or never will win a championship competing with men as far as driving is concerned, although Elizabeth Junek was pretty handy behind the wheel..

 

[Mephistopheles]

Dash Racing, you say spatial I say spacial, lets make the whole thing work..

 

[Jen]

As a woman, I would like to point up that my spatial awareness is extremely good and always has been. Perhaps engendered by the fact that I have no binocular vision, so due compensation is required.

Women can be just as aggressive in a car as men but, maybe, have a stronger survival instinct.

Anyway, I think RoGro has grown up. He will never be a WDC but is an excellent journeyman!

 

[RasputinLives]

Fenderman If we're saying both RoGro and Maldonado have the spacial awareness issue (and I'd like to throw Sergio Perez into the mix too) is there something about GP2 that either:

A) doesn't allow a driver to learn this skill as well as they should

Or

B) doesn't allow a driver to become aware of an issue they may have and tackle it before they reach the F1

 

[teabagyokel]

RasputinLives - GP2 cars have less grip, so I assume that GP2 prangs are put down to either that or Act of Canamasas.

 

[RasputinLives]

Speaking of Canamases he turned up in Austria but due to 'financial issues' he didn't get to drive and the team ran one car. I'm guessing the 'financial issues' was not being able to put down a whopping great deposit in case of damage!

 

[FB]

In the Villeneuve biography it mentions that he did specific exercises to increase his peripheral vision and ended up improving this by 10% on either side. I wonder if Romain did this after his early problems, or any of the other drivers for that matter.

 

[LifeW12]

I wonder is Romain is gonna end up as one of the best drivers never to win in F1

 

[racecub]

I like Roman. And I do think he's generally under valued. There was his initial issue with being a bit wild, it seemed he lost spacial awareness round him sometimes; but once he got a decent car he delivered. And this year he's done the best he could given the machinery. Way ahead of Maldo. Ok, I know, I know.
But I'd love to see what he could do in equal machinery with say the Williams guys. I think he'd be on top. Also how he'd fair against the Red Bull drivers, again I think he'd be up there. But you get the feeling that maybe his ship has sailed. And that's a bit sad.

 

[Il_leone]

I almost forgot Eric Bouillier was his personal manager and at the moment he has hands full with dealing the situation at Mclaren, Roman is pinning on Renault buying back Lotus to help prolong his F1 future as his career has stalled whilst the next generation of future drivers have emerged