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?

 

[Irishgreen]

Wee Jackie has said he's going to help him

 

[Viscount]

RasputinLives Grosjean has a brake pedal, he should of used it. He was just so focused on Perez he didn't realise Webber was slowing down. Perez was closer to Webber and managed to slow down, on the onboard footage Grosjean passes the slowing Perez to hit Webber. Plus it wasn't just Webber's race affected, it was also the catalyst for further incidents behind him as drivers tried to avoid his car such as Rosberg getting hit.

He may not be blaming other people, but it's still an issue that needs to be fixed. He can't continue to have an incident 60% of the time he gets into a car.

Isn't someone crashing into you a fair excuse for your bad race? It obviously did matter to Webber because he did go and speak to Grosjean about it after the race.

 

[Irishgreen]

We all make mistakes. Even me

 

[Quintessentially]

In England, if you crash into the back of someone it's always your fault.

 

[Irishgreen]

In Ireland, if you crash into the back of someone it's always a bit of craic.

 

[Viscount]

People make mistakes but Grosjean seems to do it a lot on the first lap.

A few quotes from Romain's first attempt at F1 in 2009:

Race 1 - Valencia:
Grosjean, “Unfortunately the first lap didn’t go well for me.."
Badoer, "I got a good start, making up a few places but then I was hit by Grosjean and that dropped me back down again."

Race 2 - Belgium:
Button, "I was on the outside of Heikki and turned in for the corner but quite simply Romain outbraked himself and hit my back wheel. That was it for my race today."

Race 3 - Monza:
Grosjean, “I’m very disappointed with today’s race. My start was very poor and I need to try and understand why. I had some contact in the first chicane and so the car was damaged for the rest of my race."

He has the speed, but 12 first lap incidents in 22 races, he really needs to sort that out.

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

RasputinLives... show me the clear path and where Webber chopped him...

Upon seeing it again it is the sort of mistake a rookie FF1600 driver would make in his first race...

 

[Quintessentially]

Quite simply the nutjob was too busy fighting with Perez or whoever it was in the Sauber and completely forgot about the road ahead.

 

[RasputinLives]

Viscount I have not said he doesn't need to sort stuff out I just find the public beating with words a bit on the harsh side

Incidently how many accidents has Perez had in the last 2 years? Not exactly clean either.

 

[Viscount]

RasputinLives Do you think his one race ban was a fair punishment?

Perez has had a fair few incidents, but I don't think he's ran into many other drivers and generally manages to make it round first laps with his car still intact.

 

[RasputinLives]

Viscount I think the accident at Spa was very different as his start was dangerous and identical to accident caused previously much like Mika Hakkenien and his ban in 94. Action did need to be taken and I don't disagree a one race ban was the right way to go. I do question whether if this had taken place at the back end of the grid whether the same punishment would have been issued.

Once again I'll question why others haven't had similar treatment dished out. I keep hearing this nine first lap incidents thing but I would like to see them all together.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Off the top of my head I can remember four Malaysia he took out Schumacher. Monaco he took out Schumacher, Spa enough said and Japan.

I'm sure someone else can fill in the other 5 if they exist....

 

[gdeacon7]

RasputinLivesAustralia - Contact with Maldonado in T13: Grosjean retires
Malaysia - Contact with Schumacher in T4: both spin and lose positions
Spain - Contact with Perez in T3: Perez gets left rear puncture
Monaco - Contact with Alonso, Schumacher et al before T1: Grosjean retires
Great Britain - Contact with Di Resta in T4: Di Resta gets right rear puncture, Grosjean pits for new front wing
Germany - Contact (with Senna maybe?) on 1st lap: pits for punctured tyre and new front wing - can't find much information about this crash and didn't see it in the TV coverage at the time
Belgium - Contact with Hamilton causes massive accident in T1: Grosjean, Hamilton, Alonso and Perez retire, Kobayashi suffers damage
Japan - Contact with Webber in T2: Grosjean pits for front wing, Webber spins.

Obviously these aren't all 100% Grosjean's fault but the numbers speak for themselves. More often than not, Grosjean's car is damaged within the first 2 minutes of the race

 

[Viscount]

I'll be honest, if his incidents happened at the back of the grid it wouldn't be anywhere near as publicized just like Karthikeyan and Vettel's incident in Malayasia. In Formula One everyone's equal but some are more equal than others.

Edit. beaten by gdeacon7

The Germany incident was with Senna, both had punctures and front wing damage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/19509199

So 8 incidents this year, not 9 and 11 total first lap incidents in his 22 GPs so far. A 50% success rate at the 'pinnacle of motorsport'.

 

[KekeTheKing]

I keep hearing this nine first lap incidents thing but I would like to see them all together.

I posted a video after Spa with "all"of Romain's incidents. Mephistopheles astutely pointed out that using the term "all" was premature. Consequently I've been forced to amend the earlier video to include Suzuka. I've also added the slight touch he had with Senna at Catalunya.

Here is the start from his first GP. Romain loses his front wing on Glock's car coming over the bridge.

Race 1 - Valencia:
Badoer, "I got a good start, making up a few places but then I was hit by Grosjean and that dropped me back down again."

I'm not sure we can pin that one on Grosjean. I'm not convinced there was any contact between those two.

Here is the Spa 2009 incident that took out Button, Hamilton, and Alguersuari.

 

[Viscount]

KekeTheKing You can only see the contact with Badoer on Grosjean's onboard footage, it's on the FIA season review.

 

[teabagyokel]

gdeacon7 - Not only was his incident with Maldonado on Lap 2, and thus not a first lap incident at all, but it was emphatically not in any way his fault.

 

[The Artist.....]

So, in this video, is it Maldonado to blame or Grosjean?..... - I've regularly seen it rolled out as a stick to beat Maldonado with, but there is as much wrongdoing by Grosjean - when he goes into the corner all brakes blazing, hits the guy in front, and then rubs wheels with Maldo!

 

[Josh]

I think he barely hit the guy in front, if he even hit him, and he had nowhere to go when Maldonado decided left was a good direction (if you watch, they're barely behind the other guy when they go off).

The only faults are his lock up and the ever so slight touch with the guy in front (if they touched).

 

[Senna's_right_foot]

Also posted in the Taki Inoue twitter thread but relevant here as I assume it's only what most are thinking