Romain Grosjean turns 40 – here’s his career in 10 key moments

But the youngster had had little track time in F1 machinery, and had only driven the unfancied R29 in straightline tests due to new-for-2009 restrictions, so he struggled tremendously alongside two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, scored a best result of 13th in seven races, and lost his seat.

2011: Grosjean bounces back and wins GP2

Romain Grosjean, DAMS

Romain Grosjean, DAMS

After losing his spot on the F1 grid, Grosjean regrouped in lower-stake series: the Andros Trophy (a French ice racing competition), the GT1 world championship and Auto GP. The latter allowed him to stay sharp in single-seaters, and he easily claimed the title despite missing one-third of the season.

“I thought about stopping everything,” Grosjean told GP Racing in 2012. “At one point I wasn't sure I would ever get back to F1, but my passion was so strong. I believed in my dream and I believed I could make it back. It went through my head to stop racing altogether, but then I started racing again in the FIA GT championship and my feeling was: ‘Racing is so good’.”

This led to his return to GP2 in 2011 with DAMS – he won the Asian subseries before clinching the main title too. Although he took just one pole position, his consistency meant he scored 89 points to runner-up Luca Filippi’s 54.

2012: Belgian GP mistake leads to race ban

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team

Again, Grosjean’s GP2 performance earned him a seat at the Enstone-based team, now known as Lotus, alongside Kimi Raikkonen.

But Grosjean’s maiden full F1 season was scruffy. He was involved in at least nine collisions, one of which arguably was a tiny but very consequential mistake at the start of the Belgian GP, as he narrowly drove into Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren and caused a pileup.

“I accept it was my mistake,” Grosjean told GP Racing. “La Source is a tough corner and it was a bit crazy with Maldonado jumping the start and Kobayashi smoking a lot. I made a mistake and I misjudged the gap with Lewis. I was sure I was in front of him. So a small mistake made a big incident. I didn't change my line, I went from left to right. I wasn't wanting to put anyone in the wall – I'm not here to stop the race in the first corner. I'm sorry for what happened and I'm glad nobody was hurt.”

Grosjean was banned from the following grand prix, then spun Mark Webber around at the start of the Japanese GP, with the Australian labelling him a “first-lap nutcase”.

Still, there were highlights: three podiums, including second place from seventh on the grid in Canada, just 2.5s behind race winner Hamilton.

2013: Now a consistent podium finisher

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team

Grosjean gained consistency in the 2013 campaign, even though he was still down on team-mate Raikkonen and there were ups and downs.

The Frenchman struggled again in the first eight rounds. “He started off this season really gingerly I think,” trackside operations director Alan Permane commented at the time. “Then we had Monaco, which was a total disaster for him.” Grosjean collided with Daniel Ricciardo as the pair battled over 13th place in the principality.

“He was so quick; he was super, super quick, but just didn't get it together. He kept crashing and had a terrible qualifying. Then we as a team had a couple of pretty average races honestly but then, about Nurburgring time, something changed in him.

“His attitude has changed. He is much, much calmer out of the car. He is focusing on the right thing and not getting stressed and panicking, not having his hysterical moments like ‘I've got no grip’ or ‘the brakes are terrible’.

“Whenever you drive one of these cars, there is always a problem. There is always something wrong, and you never have it 100% right.

“Before, he would focus on that and that it would drag the rest of it down. But now he has the ability to say, 'that bit isn't working', so we'll put that over there for later and work on the 100 other things we really do have to worry about. When they're done, we can sort that other bit out.”

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Excluding reliability issues, Grosjean finished in the top eight in nine of the remaining 11 races, including five podium finishes. Over that period, he scored more points than anyone but Sebastian Vettel, Alonso and Webber; on four occasions, he was fewer than 10 seconds away from victory.

“I try to stay away from incidents as much as I can,” he explained in September that year. “I didn't change but I have improved. I have been working hard and that is not a secret and I think I have showed on the track.

“For sure I am not anymore the black sheep in the middle of the field. It makes life easier. I am happy with the progress I did and now I feel pretty good. Very often [I am] fighting at the front – I like it.”

2015: Grosjean drives struggling Lotus to Spa podium

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team

The new technical era from 2014 onwards was tough for Lotus, whose initial asymmetrical aero concept didn’t pay off. Grosjean scored just eight points in 2014; new team-mate Pastor Maldonado managed just two.

There was slight improvement in 2015 as Lotus’ switched to the benchmark Mercedes engine for one year, and Grosjean arguably achieved the best performance of his career as he drove the E23 to the podium in Spa-Francorchamps.

With 10 laps remaining, Grosjean was just 3.6s behind third-placed Sebastian Vettel. “[Mercedes] didn’t want Sebastian Vettel particularly to get a podium in Spa,” then Lotus CEO Matthew Carter told the Missed Apex podcast in 2017, “and they could see that Romain, on newer tyres, was catching. So they gave him a different engine mode to go into.”

It took just five laps for Grosjean to catch the Ferrari, whose right-rear tyre eventually failed on the penultimate lap.

“Romain came in at the end of that race and said the car had never driven the way it had in the last laps of the race,” Carter added.

“Mercedes never told us what it was. They told us there was no difference whatsoever. Romain was saying to me, ‘No way, that car drove differently’.”

2016: Points on Haas’ F1 debut

Romain Grosjean & Gene Haas, Haas

Romain Grosjean & Gene Haas, Haas

“Has Grosjean committed career suicide?” Autosport wondered in September 2015 when the Frenchman jumped from the ailing Lotus ship to newcomer Haas. At the time, Renault’s eventual takeover of the Enstone-based team was far from completed.

“It's a risk because you always know what you have and you never know what you are going to get,” Grosjean told Autosport at the time. “But it is the same in life – when you change something, you know what you have and you guess what you're going to have. It's not a gamble because I have a bit of information which I wanted to have and I feel absolutely 100% convinced.”

Haas’ debut exceeded all expectations as Grosjean took a remarkable sixth in Melbourne, followed up by a stunning fifth in Bahrain.

Understandable teething problems ensued, especially braking-wise, but Grosjean still showed he had not, in fact, committed career suicide. He single-handedly scored 3.6 times as many points as Renault.

2018: Haas’ best-ever result in Austria

Romain Grosjean, Haas

Romain Grosjean, Haas

Haas made further progress in the following seasons, as Kevin Magnussen replaced the struggling Esteban Gutierrez alongside Grosjean. But coming into the 2018 Austrian GP, the latter was yet to score a point that year.

Grosjean suffered a poor run, including causing a three-car collision at the start of the Spanish GP and crashing from sixth behind the safety car in Baku, before an engine failure prevented him from taking part in Canadian GP qualifying and he crashed in Q3 at Paul Ricard.

But in the following round at the Red Bull Ring, Grosjean qualified sixth with Magnussen eighth; they made the most of technical issues for Red Bull’s Ricciardo and Mercedes’ Hamilton to finish fourth and fifth, which remains Haas’ best result to this day; Oliver Bearman equalled it last year in Mexico.

2020: Grosjean survives horrific Bahrain crash

Romain Grosjean, Haas

Romain Grosjean, Haas

The 2019 and 2020 campaigns were much tougher for Haas, and in October 2020 the team announced veterans Grosjean and Magnussen were set to leave, having set its sights on well-backed rookies Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher.

Grosjean didn’t even see out his maiden season at the team. On lap one of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Haas driver made contact with Daniil Kvyat and hit the wall at 192km/h. His car burst into flames and was broken into two distinct halves by the guardrail; Grosjean’s foot was stuck but he managed to escape and survived in extremis, with his hands badly burned after he spent a seemingly interminable 28 seconds stuck in the fire.

“I wasn't for the halo some years ago, but I think it's the greatest thing that we've brought to Formula 1, and without it I wouldn't be able to speak with you today,” he admitted shortly after the accident.

2021: Maiden IndyCar pole kickstarts new era

Romain Grosjean, Dale Coyne Racing

Romain Grosjean, Dale Coyne Racing

Following the end of his F1 career, Grosjean found shelter in IndyCar, where he raced from 2021 to 2024 and returned in 2026 after a year in IMSA. The Frenchman has taken six podiums from three pole positions in 68 starts, but victory is again eluding him.

Other than the 2016-17 Andros Trophy, Grosjean hasn’t won a motor race since 30 July 2011 at the Hungaroring in the GP2 Series; he was 25 years old.

“It's like being alive again,” Grosjean said after ending his similarly lengthy pole drought in IndyCar, back in 2021. No doubt the feeling will be even better if he ever returns to the top step of the podium.

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