Five years on from his Formula 1 career-ending Bahrain Grand Prix accident, Romain Grosjean made an emotional return to F1 in a Mugello test.
A Haas driver from 2016 to 2020 before he moved on to IndyCar, Grosjean got the chance to drive the team’s VF-23 car from the 2023 campaign alongside F1 TV pundit and former IndyCar racer James Hinchcliffe, who got his first taste of F1 for an upcoming feature on the championship’s official broadcast channel.
Little information has emerged about the test day, which took place alongside Pirelli development running, other than the occurrence of rain; regardless, Grosjean was ecstatic following his experience – and the emotion of an ovation in the pitlane.
“It was a wet day, but as we say, it was a rainy wedding, a rainy happy wedding,” the 39-year-old said. “So it was a rainy day, happy day, fantastic.
“Just felt a bit rusty at first, and then everything came back. I even got to do a standing start, and guess what, my last standing start was Bahrain 2020. So this time it turned out way better.
“Very grateful, very unique opportunity getting to see some of the people that were in Australia 2016 and get to drive the new generation of cars. It was fantastic and, again, I'm very, very grateful. There's just no other words.”
Team principal Ayao Komatsu, who followed Grosjean from Lotus to Haas as a race engineer for 2016, and heritage chief engineer Dominic Haines, who was Grosjean’s race engineer from 2019-2020, were in attendance among many friendly faces for the Geneva native.
“They made me cry at the end of the day!” Grosjean exclaimed. “I kept my visor down, but for my last in-lap, everyone from Ferrari, Red Bull, Pirelli and of course Haas F1 team was here, clapping and giving me like an ovation. That's something I was expecting in Abu Dhabi 2020 [for his planned F1 farewell], but I think it was even better today.”
Photos from Haas Mugello testing
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