Romain Grosjean - Racing driver

From an F1 fireball to the heat of Florida, with development of a road-going hypercar along the way, the Swiss-French racer discusses where his career at the wheel has taken him so far

- STEPHEN DOBIE

'I FI'VE LEARNED SOMETHING IN THE LAST few years, it's never say never.' Romain Grosjean is in jovial spirits in the Daytona paddock, his smile as bright as his Nike Dunks. "I was born in Europe and raced there all of my career until Formula 1 took me worldwide. US sport was not on my radar. But I'm here now and I love it. I love the way people race here, I love the atmosphere, I love living in the States. So it's pretty cool.

It would be fair to call the last few years of Grosjean's life 'a whirlwind'. His F1 career ended with a quite literal bang at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Nine seasons, ten podiums and 391 points were heavily underlined by the 67 g crash that saw his Haas VF-20 engulfed in flames, the world pausing for breath as we desperately awaited its driver's escape.

'Netflix is really big for F1 in the US,' he explains. 'So there are plenty of people who didn't see any of my podiums but come and talk about my accident. I don't mind, it's cool. That accident is part of my career. It was scary, it was big, and I'm lucky to have walked away. I've had to use it as a positive experience. For people who've recently started watching F1 that's the only thing they know of me. Those last two years with Haas we were just on the grid to be on the grid.

Nevertheless, Grosjean extracted four points across those two seasons, though his most recent podium - a third place at Spa in 2015 - came in his final season with Lotus. The top step always eluded him in an F1 car, but he's the first to admit he graduated to the sport during an era dense with driving talent.