Romain Grosjean, Renault, Interlagos, 2011

Romain Grosjean says his brief experience of F1 in 2009 will stand him in good stead on his return this year.

Speaking as the Lotus E20 was launched Grosjean said: “It’s difficult to say how I should view this season.

“For sure I did seven Grands Prix alongside Fernando [Alonso] and the experience I gained from that was helpful – and is still helpful today.

“On the other hand there are still some circuits that I don’t know. But I don’t think we can say I’m a rookie, just because of the experience I have. Let’s say that I am a young driver who still has plenty of things to learn in Formula One, but we are all expecting a good season.”

Groejean added: “I don’t know Albert Park, I don’t know Shanghai, I don’t know Canada, America nobody knows, India I don’t know and Korea I don’t know. So in the early stages of the season I know all the tracks except Albert Park and Shanghai. I know Sepang and Bahrain. We will see what happens.

Grosjean described how he got himself in a position to get back into F1:

“The process for getting the 2012 drive really began with GP2, where my goal was to bring DAMS back to the top and show that I can be a team leader. For sure winning the title was something that we all wanted, but championships can depend on many things.

“Then there were the two Friday morning sessions in Formula One, which were a real test in terms of seeing if I had the speed, feedback and everything the team was looking for. I knew it was very important and it went well, but then you just have to wait.

“That was the most difficult part, but I knew I’d done everything – the best I could do – so I had no regrets. I was waiting and just trying to read the faces of the people in the team to imagine what the decision would be! That’s always part of this job. You get used to it year after year.”

He added: “Compared with 2009 I am two years older! No big difference, just an improvement in terms of many small things, including maturity.

“The 2009 experience was very helpful for me to understand things and grow up from that point. So it was difficult, but very good as well. The 2012 Romain Grosjean sees life a little bit different. My aim is to enjoy my number one passion, Formula One.”

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Image © Renault/LAT

Jenson Button was fastest in the first practice session at Abu Dhabi.

The two McLaren drivers had been quickest towards the end of the session before they were split by Mark Webber.

Hamilton led the early running as he went out on Pirelli’s new development rubber.

The two Red Bulls took over at the top of the times shortly afterwards, Mark Webber briefly leading Sebastian Vettel.

It was a scrappy session for the Ferrari drivers, both of which had spins. Felipe Massa lost the car turning into turn one, spinning off at speed.

Fernando Alonso spun at turn five and had several other off-track moments in his Ferrari.

The pair improved to fifth and sixth late on the session, also using Pirelli’s new development tyre.

Romain Grosjean was faster than his team mate but Vitaly Petrov had to abandon his car at the end of the session as sparks began coming from the car’s exhaust.

Robert Wickens, making his first appearance in an F1 practice session, was the slowest of the drivers to set at time.

Rubens Barrichello was unable to set a time, pulling over early in the session with engine failure.

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• Sauber: Kobayashi ends seven-race drought

Romain Grosjean, 2011

Romain Grosjean will drive for Renault in two practice sessions before the end of the season, the team have confirmed.

The GP2 championship winner will drive in the first practice sessions at the Abu Dhabi and Brazilian Grands Prix.

Grosjean, who started seven races for Renault at the end of 2009, has been tipped to drive for the team in 2012.

Team principal Eric Boullier said: “Romain has been part of the [Renault] family since February and we feel this is an appropriate time to give him a chance to drive for us during two free practice sessions.

“Putting his skills to the test in two consecutive Friday sessions will offer him precious experience of driving the R31 during a race weekend and will make him a better driver.

“I’m sure that his feedback will be useful for the team, especially as he raced in F1 only two years ago. Since then, he has improved in every area and I’m sure he’ll do a good job for us. We will be able to do this without compromising our usual Friday set-up work in any way, and as of free practice two at both race weekends, Bruno and Vitaly will return to their cars.”

Grosjean said: “It will be a big responsibility for me and my priority will be to do the best job I can for the team.

“I know all the team’s mechanics and engineers, am familiar with the methodology and processes and I know the two tracks I’ll be testing on. I also feel that the racing I did in the GP2 Series this year will stand me in good stead fitness-wise.

“Finally, I did some F1 testing for Pirelli during the winter at the beginning of this year, so the tyres shouldn’t be too alien to me. I believe all the right elements are in place to make this a great experience, and I don’t feel too much pressure going into this.”

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Grosjean has won five times in GP2 this year

Romain Grosjean can claim the GP2 championship in next weekend’s two races supporting the Belgian Grand Prix.

Grosjean heads into the weekend knowing he only needs to maintain the gap over his pursuers to claim the title.

And it could pave the way to a return to F1 – in a more long-term capacity than his brief stint with Renault at the end of 2009.

Grosjean began the season with an emphatic win from pole position in Turkey. But it’s not been plain sailing for him since then.

He was stripped of fourth place in Spain after failing a ride height test, and battled from last on the grid to ninth in the sprint race.

After a chaotic qualifying session at Monaco he started last again, before impressively hauling his car from 26th to fourth via an inspired strategy.

He was back on the top step of the podium in Valencia but in the sprint race he collided with Sam Bird and Davide Valsecchi on the first lap and crashed out. But since that setback he’s finished every race in the top four.

Winning the championship would give him a strong claim to a place at F1 in 2012. Only once in the six-year history of GP2 has its champion failed to find a seat in F1 the next year.

Grosjean’s close ties with Renault team principal Eric Boullier could help him avoid the fate of Giorgio Pantano.

On paper both of the team’s seats for next year are occupied by Vitaly Petrov and the injured Robert Kubica.

But the situation regarding Kubica’s seat is far less clear. Doubts remain over when and if he will be able to return. He is due to undergo a further operation later this month, which may shed light on the situation.

Last month Boullier sang Grosjean’s praises, saying he “has the potential to be one of the big boys” and is “much more mature than two years ago” when he made his first seven starts in F1.

In Hungary, Renault gave Bruno Senna a run in the first practice session in place of Nick Heidfeld to assess his pace.

If they’re seriously considering Grosjean for a place in the team next year they may do the same for him after the GP2 season finishes at Monza – as happened with fellow Gravity Sports Management member Jerome d’Ambrosio at Virgin last year.

What about Bianchi?

Bianchi held Vietoris back in a gripping battle at Silverstone

The anticipated battle between Grosjean and Ferrari development driver Jules Bianchi has largely failed to materialise.

There were signs of it in Turkey where the pair clashed on-track. At the Nurburgring Grosjean pressured Bianchi into a crucial mistake on the penultimate lap and stole victory off him.

But other than that Bianchi has often failed to figure in the battle at the front, and usually through his own doing.

He lost his pole position in Spain after being found to have ignored yellow flags during his lap. He collided with Giedo van der Garde on the run to turn one in the sprint race, putting him out.

Astonishingly he hit the same driver again in the next race at Monaco, though Bianchi’s defence his car had developed an hydraulic problem at the time.

Another first-corner crash, this time with Marcus Ericsson, ruined his weekend in Valencia, though he recovered from 24th to seventh in the sprint race.

At Silverstone we finally saw a race and result worthy of his obvious talent. Bianchi took victory after a thrilling scrap with Christian Vietoris which ranks as one of the most exciting races I’ve seen all year.

But it didn’t proved the turning point in his season it should have. After a lacklustre weekend in Hungary Bianchi lies fourth in the drivers’ standings with less than half Grosjean’s points tally.

He retains a mathematical, though wholly unrealistic, chance of winning the championship.

Second place is conceivably within his reach and it’s worth bearing in mind that every GP2 runner-up has gone on to compete in Formula 1. But it’s not the performance or result that was expected from him at the start of the season.

Do you think Grosjean or Bianchi deserve a place in F1 next year? What about the likes of Giedo van der Gade, Sam Bird or Davide Valsecchi? Have your say in the comments.

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Images © GP2

Romain Grosjean will take over Nick Heidfeld’s role testing tyres for Pirelli.

The change follows Heidfeld’s move to re-join Sauber, announced on Tuesday.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said the change of drivers to Grosjean was “in order to avoid favouring any individual team”:

We’d like to thank Nick for his very valuable contribution to our tyre development programme and we wish him all the best for the future.

In order to avoid favouring any individual team, we have jointly decided to release Nick from his contract and now we have chosen Romain to test for us in Monza. He’s packed a lot of experience into a short space of time, including all our GP3 tyre development, so I’m sure he’ll be able to give us some very useful feedback.

The tests here at Jerez have gone extremely well and we completed all the work that we planned over the two days. Now we move onto Monza, where our task will be to finalise the construction before we focus further on compounds.
Paul Hembery

Heidfeld completed 100 laps of running in the two-day test at Jerez.

Read more: Grosjean joins Lopez’s Gravity management

Image © Pirelli

Lopez is on the board of Genii Capital which bought into the Renault F1 team at the end of last year.

Renault are yet to confirm who will be their second driver alongside Robert Kubica in 2011.

Grosjean is hoping to return to F1 after seven races for Renault at the end of 2009. He’s driving from the DAMS team (formerly run by Renault team principal Eric Boullier) in GP2 at Monza again this weekend.

Grosjean said:

This agreement with Gravity Sport Management is a great opportunity for me, and I’m very happy to be able to take advantage of it.

Such a partner will enable me to concentrate on my return to top-level single-seater racing, and I hope to attain my main aim, which is still Formula 1.

This weekend’s mission will be to build on the promising performance on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit on which Jérôme and I showed the team’s and car’s potential.

A victory would be a marvellous reward for the efforts invested over the last few weekends by everybody. One thing’s sure. Monza’s a circuit that I like; it’s a very quick track and I’m prepared to give the maximum.
Romain Grosjean

Read more: Grosjean to make another GP2 apearance

Grosjean, who started seven races for Renault at the end of last year, will drive for DAMS in the two GP2 races at Spa.

He has already driven for the team in place of Jerome d’Ambrosio at the Hockenheimring, where he failed to score despite showing good pace.

This weekend he will take the place of d’Ambrosio’s team mate Ho-Pin Tung, who was injured in a crash with Jules Bianchi in the last round at the Hungaroring.

Grosjean made his return to single-seater racing at Spa earlier this year, where he set pole position and won in Auto GP.

Also returning to GP2 at Spa this weekend is Alvaro Parente. The Portuguese driver was briefly the third driver for Virgin at the start of the year but his contract with the team ended before the season started due to a sponsorship dispute. Parente takes the place of Alberto Valerio at Coloni.

Read more: Why Grosjean deserves another F1 shot

With no movement on the 2011 F1 driver market so far, it looks as though there might not be very many spaces for new drivers next year.

But with a 13th team potentially being announced soon and a fresh crop of graduates from GP2 and beyond looking for a way in, we could still see some new faces on the grid next year. Here’s a few to look out for.

Pastor Maldonado

Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado fared poorly alongside Nico Hülkenberg at ART last year, but having returned to the team he drove for in 2008 he is faring much better.

The Rapax driver won his fifth consecutive feature race at Hungary in emphatic fashion and has a comfortable championship lead with six races remaining.

There have been occasional snags, notably in the sprint race at the Hungaroring where he failed to heed a black-and-orange flag and ended up being disqualified. He was fortunate not to be handed a tougher penalty.

So far only Giorgio Pantano has failed to convert a GP2 championship victory into an F1 drive the following year – having spent a total of seven years competing in F3000 and GP2. Maldonado’s four-year tenure in GP2 doesn’t necessarily put him at risk of the same but this is looking like his last and best chance.

Maldonado has some backing from his country’s government and that combined with his performance this year could lead him to be the first Venezuelan to race in F1 since Johnny Cecotto 26 years ago.

He is managed by Nicolas Todt, the well-connected son of FIA President Jean Todt who also manages Felipe Massa and Jules Bianchi.

Sergio Perez

Sergio Perez is also from a country in the Americas which hasn’t had an F1 driver for a while. The last Mexican to start a Grand Prix was Hector Rebaque in 1981.

At 20, Perez is five years younger than Maldonado and there’s been a touch of youthful impetuosity in his driving at times – particularly when he threw away a points finish in the sprint race last week with a half-hearted overtaking move.

But he has shown excellent speed on occasions and is comfortably handling a much more experienced team mate. He’s won three times already this year and lost a likely double points finish at Istanbul when his car was found to be underweight after the sprint race.

With backing from telecommunications company Telmex, who have supported several Mexican racing drivers in the past, Perez could find a place on the F1 grid next year.

Currently second in GP2, if he finishes there it leaves only one place he can afford to finish should he hang around for a third season in 2011.

Daniel Ricciardo

The Formula Renault 3.5 championship is led by Mikhail Aleshin, who’s in his fourth season in the category. Rookie Daniel Ricciardo is just seven points behind.

The Red Bull development driver followed in the footsteps of Jaime Alguersuari by winning the British Formula Three championship last year.

Ricciardo also impressed in the junior drivers’ test at the end of last year, driving a Red Bull RB5.

There are no vacancies for him at either of the Red Bull teams next year, so a switch to a to GP2 team in 2011 might be the next step for the 21-year-old Australian.

Paul di Resta

Di Resta’s DTM performance this year is probably of less significance for his future in F1 than the seven appearances he has made in practice sessions with Force India – a sign he’s being considered for a promotion.

With Vitantonio Liuzzi enduring a difficult comeback to the sport Di Resta looks like a good tip for a race seat next year.

Who else?

Hotly-tipped Ferrari development driver Jules Bianchi started his season for GP2 powerhouse ART as expected, claiming pole position for the first race of the season.

But it all went downhill from there as the French driver crashed out at the first corner. Fourth in the championship is a creditable performance for a rookie, but he’s winless so far and hasn’t quite met those high expectations.

Matters took a turn for the worse at the Hungaroring, where he ended the weekend in the same AEK Hospital Felipe Massa was taken to last year. Thankfully Bianchi’s injuries, sustained in a crash at the start of the GP2 feature race, were not life-threatening, but the damage to his back will exclude him from several races.

Ex-Renault driver Romain Grosjean has impressed in a few single-seater drives this year, winning in Auto GP and showing good speed in a brief appearance at DAMS in GP2. F1 is clearly unfinished business for him.

Have you spotted any other drivers in the junior formulae who deserve a place in F1 next year? Have your say in the comments.

Read more: 2011 F1 drivers and teams

Image (C) GP2 Media Serivce, GP2 Media Serivce, GP2 Media Serivce, Renault, Force India F1 Team, GP2 Media Serivce

According to the official GP2 website Grosjean will take the place of Jerome d’Ambrosio:

With testing strictly controlled in this category, Gravity Sport Management has made this decision in order to analyse the reasons why the d’Ambrosio/DAMS pairing has been unable to fully unlock its potential so far this season.

D’Ambrosio, a member of the Renault Driver Development programme, is currently 15th in the championship with seven points, all of which were scored at Monaco.

DAMS’s GP2 cars carry the same colours as the Renault F1 team, which Grosjean started seven races for at the end of last year.

Grosjean recently made a return to single seater racing in the Auto GP category and is second in that championship having raced in four of the eight rounds.

Read more: Why Grosjean deserves another F1 shot

Romain Grosjean returned to single-seater racing last month for the first time since being dropped from F1 by Renault at the end of last year.

Having contested four races in the new Auto GP series he lies second in the championship, despite having missed the first four rounds of the year.

That alone is not strong enough grounds to say he shouldn’t have been dropped from F1. But comparing his performance last year to how well his successor Vitaly Petrov is doing, perhaps Grosjean was dropped too hastily.

It’s fair to say Romain Grosjean had an unusually tough introduction to F1. He was ushered in to Renault to replace Nelson Piquet Jnr, whose involvement in the Singapore race-fixing scandal had only just come to light.

Renault were publicly excoriated when the scandal emerged and team principal Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds were shown the door.

Amid the upheaval, Grosjean had to grapple with a wretched car and a double world champion team mate – and without the testing opportunities available to Petrov at the start of this year.

Despite that, Grosjean fared better on pace compared to Fernando Alonso than Petrov has compared to Robert Kubica.

Over his seven appearances Grosjean was, on average, 0.667% slower than Alonso on their fastest laps. In his ten appearances to date Petrov has been 1.013% slower than Kubica:

Romain Grosjean and Vitaly Petrov versus their team mates (click to enlarge)

Perception matters a lot in Formula 1. Grosjean certainly gets less credit than he deserves for coping with the R29 and Petrov should be grateful he’s driving an R30 instead.

In leaving Grosjean on the sidelines this year F1 has passed judgement on him too quickly. His junior formulae credentials – with an F3 Euroseries championship (like Lewis Hamilton) and several GP2 wins – are strong.

Unfortunately it’s not clear where he might fit in were he to return in 2011. Several teams have already confirmed unchanged line-ups for next year and any places that do open up in established teams could well be taken by experienced drivers currently racing for new teams – such as Timo Glock.

Do you think Romain Grosjean deserves an F1 return? Have your say in the comments.

Read more: Romain Grosjean biography

Image (C) Renault/LAT