Why IndyCar is satisfying Grosjean’s appetite for his second life

It took a lot to topple a global pandemic as 2020’s biggest motorsports story, but Romain Grosjean’s horrific fiery Bahrain Grand Prix crash provided such heart-stopping images that even Netflix didn’t need to over-egg the drama. Despite the burns he received, that prematurely curtailed his F1 career, it didn’t extinguish his passion for the sport and he’s found his perfect partner for a second life in IndyCar.

Five months on from that near-death experience, Autosport sat down with him just before qualifying at St Petersburg in Florida.

“I just did my washing before meeting you,” Grosjean laughs. “It’s so different to F1! But I really enjoy it.”

You can tell by the smile on his face that he’s loving being back in a racing paddock, but you could forgive him for wanting to be as far away as possible after what happened in Sakhir last November. And yet, he sees no reason for that to be the end of his career.

“That crash, in the end, it was a positive thing in my life,” he says. “Yes, my hand is painful and it’s not good looking – I forgot to tape it this morning [in practice at St Pete], and I felt so much pain. At the end, it made me realise that life is beautiful. How lucky I am to have my three kids and my wife. Every day is a bonus.”

And IndyCar was the breath of fresh air that he needed, after a decade in the F1 paddock?

“Very much,” he nods. “Formula 1 stays Formula 1. I don’t regret spending 10 years there, I know I was very lucky to do what I did. But coming here, I don’t think I’ve been this happy for a very long time.

Romain Grosjean, Barber 2021

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

“The last few years in F1 were painful because the performance wasn’t there, no matter whatever we tried. So, for me, it’s a lot of fresh air. Coming back to a level playing field, that’s fun.”

And it shows he’s enjoying life. In the days leading up to the race weekend in the pretty Florida bayside city, Grosjean has been out on the water. Not enough wind for his kitesurfing hobby, but he met a new friend who gave him a hydrofoil board, so he could skip across the surface of the Tampa Bay gulf coast. Then he spent a couple of days on his road bike, simply “discovering stuff”.

"The car is 20 years behind F1 technologically, but in the end who cares? Everyone has the same one, the racing is good. And the courses we are using, they’re bumpy, they’re short, you don’t really need more horsepower or technology" Romain Grosjean

Before that, he’d had his wife and three kids with him, as they explored America before dad embarked on the opening round of the series.

“We did a bit of a road trip as a family, we came a week and a half before Barber, went down to Key West and then Miami, where we picked up an RV, then we drove all the way up the east coast of Florida, towards Atlanta,” he relates. “Between races I’m based in Miami, I really love it.

“OK, it’s not Formula 1 where one driver is paid $50million a year, and you could run all the IndyCars here inside the budget for one F1 team. But the racing is really good, and there’s a nice atmosphere between the drivers. And you get out on track and [rubs his hands together] let’s do it!”

He’s also enjoying the ‘back-to-basics’ feel of IndyCar, which is closer to his successful GP2 days than F1. Despite less power and grip, he’s finding his Dallara-Honda quite a handful – even compared to his oft-recalcitrant Haas.

“You know what? You think in Formula 1 you train hard and it’s difficult,” he says. “Then you get to IndyCar and, yes, for the neck and the core it’s easier with less G-forces, definitely, but the amount of work you need to do behind the wheel [Grosjean saws at an imaginary wheel in front of him] it is another thing!

Grosjean in action at St. Petersburg 2021

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

“The steering is super-heavy – much higher than I experienced in GP2 [which also lacked power steering]. When I was driving GP2, I was 12 kilos lighter than I am now. I did not have any issues with the wheel, but this is very tough! The tyres are very good – Firestone is Bridgestone, so I’m super-happy with them.

“The way you race is different, you know. Lap one and it’s flatout to the chequered flag. In Formula 1, you know, it’s you race flatout for a couple of laps then you back off a little bit, you look after your tyres, and you make a gap because you’ve usually got issues with the brake temperature, and you lift and coast and so on. Here, you just go for it. I’m like panting in the car!”

All of this is delivered with a massive smile on his face, and you also get the sense that he’s enjoying the family-like atmosphere of his Dale Coyne Racing with RWR team. Along with engineer Olivier Boisson, Grosjean has been sinking his teeth in car set-ups – and enjoying how accurate the Honda simulator has been so far in shortcutting him on the pace.

“You can play with the car balance, rollbars, rollcentres, car geometry, stuff like that,” he says. “The car is 20 years behind F1 technologically, but in the end who cares? Everyone has the same one, the racing is good.

“And the courses we are using, they’re bumpy, they’re short, you don’t really need more horsepower or technology. The dampers and tyres give you the grip and aerodynamically it’s limited.”

His season started well, qualifying seventh for the season-opener at Barber Motorsports Park, then racing to a 10th place finish. He adds: “At Barber I’d never tried saving fuel in this car, so when the team told me, ‘We’re going to go for a two-stop’, I’m like ‘OK, let’s save fuel’.

“Coming from F1, that was quite easy, it was more extreme there, so it was kinda natural. I was actually saving too much compared to what we should have done, so I was hitting a really low number. On that I’m OK, it’s just understanding the braking and entry into the corner, it’s quite different from F1.”

Grosjean passes Graham Rahal, Barber 2021

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

His main issue so far, and one that really impacted his St Pete weekend, was the lack of track time coupled with IndyCar not allowing teams to test on the ‘alternate’ red-walled tyre – so he’s only able to get to grips with it on race weekends.

“They don’t make it easy for rookies!” he laughs. “The first time I used reds was Barber FP2. I did an outlap, first timed lap, then there was a red flag – next thing it was quali! OK, let’s go!

"Some teams here are bigger than others, you have Penske, Chip Ganassi and Andretti, and you expect them to be at the front there with three or four cars. But we are like the small guys playing with them, saying ‘Here we are!’ The beauty of IndyCar is that it’s so close" Romain Grosjean

“Even at St Pete, I only had four laps on the reds before qualifying. But I like it. The big challenge is that the driving style is very different from F1, so still need to fine tune and find things from there.

“The good news is that it doesn’t really go faster with understeer – I don’t like understeer – and we need to work on that on the reds. I need to find the right compromise, but we’re working well with the team.”

Although his team is quite the minnow, compared to the likes of Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport, Grosjean is pumped for IndyCar’s playing field, which is far more level than F1.

“I already heard ‘P1, P1!’ and it’s ‘Yes! I haven’t heard that for a long time!’” he exclaims. “Maybe since 2013, and even then the Red Bull was far too fast in qualifying. In the race, you’d hope something would happen to them! It didn’t happen very often…

“Some teams here are bigger than others, you have Penske, Chip Ganassi and Andretti, and you expect them to be at the front there with three or four cars. But we are like the small guys playing with them, saying ‘Here we are!’ The beauty of IndyCar is that it’s so close.”

Grosjean, Barber 2021

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

Off the track, Grosjean has been making friends around the paddock, helped by already knowing the likes of French rivals Simon Pagenaud and Sebastien Bourdais. And while he remains a paid professional, he’s enjoying the more laid-back American lifestyle that IndyCar offers.

“Obviously I take this very seriously,” he says. “But if I want a beer in the evening before race day, I’ll have one. I enjoy the life. I have a good barbeque, I get some chill time in the evening, go to sleep, then I wake up on race day and focus, then it’s boom, boom, boom.

“Life is great, I’m enjoying it as much as I can as a human being. I’m lucky to be doing what I love the most. I’m still quite fit, I think I burn more calories driving an IndyCar than I ever did in F1! Ideally, now when I finish a race I go and eat a good burger! I can go for it!”

Right now he’s doing that without his family, who are back in Europe. As we discuss this, his beaming smile disappears for the first time during our chat.

“On a family level, I think it will get hard,” he rues. “June looks very tough to be away from them for a month. But they know how happy I am here, and when you think about it, since the accident, my life has got better.”

Although F1 is a global series, and IndyCar a domestic one, his regular transatlantic commutes have added a new slant too: “It almost feels like more travelling now, because to go home I have to go back to Europe, so eight hours every trip.

“The big difference in F1 was that you went to each country for five days, or longer if it was back-to-back. Obviously [America] is always a different timezone to Europe, so keeping in touch with the family is not always easy, but at least the difference is always the same, and not different all over the world.”

Grosjean meets fans, St. Pete 2021

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

Grosjean's deal is for road and street courses only, rejoining the fray for this weekend's Indy GP having skipped the Texas oval double-header. Does it feel strange missing the big oval races?

“Not doing the superspeedways allows you to live in Europe,” he says. “If I was also doing the superspeedways, there’s no way I could live in Europe – just too much time away. It will feel odd that when they do the Indy 500, I go home!”

"With the opportunities around here, I don’t see why we shouldn’t come for a few years and then move back to Europe, or not, who knows. Scott Dixon came here for a season, didn’t he? He’s been here forever!" Romain Grosjean

It helps that there are so few ovals on the IndyCar calendar right now, so Grosjean only misses four rounds – two of which have now happened. But he must be intrigued by them?

“I’d like to do Gateway, the short oval, to see how it is,” he says, reminding himself that he must talk to the team boss about it... “Superspeedways, if I was 25 and didn’t have kids, no problem. The thing that’s difficult for now is that my family is far away. If anything happens, that’s a big one…

“Most of the time driving, it’s fine. But if they are sitting 10 hours flight time away, they saw what happened in Bahrain, and for 2m43s they didn’t know if they still had a father or husband. I can’t put them in that situation. So it’s not for me, it’s for them.

“And that was like a team decision with [his wife] Marion. I never thought about stopping racing. Even in my hospital bed, my only target was trying to get back to race in Abu Dhabi. But I understand for my family and friends, me going back to racing after that is tough. So it was a case of ‘What can we find as a deal that everyone is comfortable with’.

“Most of the guys I talk to here absolutely love [oval driving], say it’s great fun. It’s weird, because from the outside, I’m like ‘Really?’ You just go round and round, full throttle! But they really seem to enjoy it.”

Pietro Fittipaldi, Texas 2021

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images

So, before anything happens to re-evaluate that, his family would have to join him so they lived full time in the USA?

“If everything goes to plan, there’s great opportunities here,” he says. “I’m lucky to have a really good relationship with Honda and obviously they have got some endurance racing with Acura in DPi. I’ve always said that Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans are races that I want to compete in.

“So, doing IndyCar, adding those races could be quite cool. If you start making a good living, with the opportunities around here, I don’t see why we shouldn’t come for a few years and then move back to Europe, or not, who knows. Scott Dixon came here for a season, didn’t he? He’s been here forever!”

What are the chances of him committing to a full-time Stateside move?

“80% is super-positive, 20% is super-negative,” he replies. “When you hear about those gun shootings and so on… that’s quite shocking, when you come from Europe. So that’s the negative. But, so far, Marion has been loving it coming here, and I’m loving it. So, we’ll see.”

Autosport reminds Grosjean that Jean Alesi was vehemently anti-oval until he took part in the 2012 Indy 500.

“I gave him so much shit for that,” Grosjean laughs. “I told him he was far too old!”

As Grosjean points out, he’s 35 right now, not 25. But Alesi was 47 when he changed his mind about ovals, so you never know…

Grosjean, St. Pete 2021

Photo by: Barry Cantrell / Motorsport Images