After his terrible accident at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, Romain Grosjean was unable to get back into the Haas car to finish the season in which he said goodbye to Formula 1.
Injuries and burns prevented him from getting behind the wheel for the second round in Sakhir and the end of the campaign in Abu Dhabi. The American team turned to Pietro Fittipaldi , but the French driver staged a heroic return to the paddock just a week after the crash.
Shortly after, Mercedes, through the team’s boss, Toto Wolff , promised that the Frenchman would have one last day in a Formula 1 with the car that was world champion.
Initially, Grosjean would be at the controls of the W10, the car that won world titles in 2019, at last year’s French Grand Prix. In this way, the test would coincide with an exhibition in front of his local fans, but, unfortunately, this never happened because the driver was contesting an Indycar race, a category in which he made his debut in 2021.
Since then, Mercedes and the Genevan have not had it easy to match, especially due to the incompatibility in the calendar and the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Grosjean moved to the United States to be able to speed up all the processes in the Indycar, however, he revealed that the plan to drive the German car of the Great Circus was still standing.
“I sent a message to Toto after Abu Dhabi,” he explained. “Well, a few weeks went by and I texted Toto, and he texted me back. It started with ‘Thank you,’ and the last sentence was, ‘We need to put you in this year’s car.’ Yeah, keep going, last year some things were not easy.
The intention for Grosjean to get on the Mercedes at the Paul Ricard circuit in 2022 will not be possible: “This year I cannot be in the French GP because we race on the same weekend in Iowa.”
“I’m sure Mercedes wants to do it, although my neck is sore, because I’ve lost some muscle there. You can ask Pato [O’Ward] what happened to him (in the McLaren car in Abu Dhabi testing), but We still want to do it, and if it happens, great. Although the goal is to try to win races with Andretti,” he concluded.
