Grosjean blames puncture for crash with Ocon after penalty

2017 Brazilian Grand Prix

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Romain Grosjean said a puncture caused his first-lap collision with Esteban Ocon which led to him receiving a penalty.

The Force India driver retired following the collision between the pair at Ferradura. Grosjean continued but later had to serve a 10-second time penalty and was given two penalty points on his licence.

“I’m sorry for Esteban Ocon,” Grosjean posted on social media, “but with a puncture (from being hit into turn one) it’s rather difficult to control the car.”

Grosjean added he is “personally struggling to understand the penalty though.”

The Haas driver now has a total of six penalty points for the current 12-month period.

This article will be updated.

2017 Brazilian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    23 comments on “Grosjean blames puncture for crash with Ocon after penalty”

    1. Interesting. I’d like to know if he knew he had a puncture at this point. If so, he should’ve backed off, but if not then I guess it’s a slightly different matter

      1. He complained over the radio about someone hitting him when the crash with Occon happened. It is not clear if he meant he was hit at turn 1 or Ferradura. Anyway, someone could explain why Vettel’s hitting Hamilton at MexicoGP start (turn 3) does not deserve any penalty and Romain’s does.

        1. Great question,

        2. Didn’t you read the rules?

          Last page: Ferrari and Mercedes cannot be penalized…

        3. I think because Hamilton didn’t retire and Ocon did. Same when Verstappen hit Riccardo at Hungarian GP and he did retire.

      2. @strontium @janderclanderr @jerejj @macleod on the replay onboard with Vandoorne, you can see Vandoorne’s front wing make contact with the left rear of Grosjean between corners 1&2. I think that may have caused the puncture. The corner with Ocon is the first high speed right hander in the lap that he would have encountered following the contact, so the first time that he’d have heavily loaded his left tyres. So it is feasible that the tyre would have given up on him at this point. I’ve heard a lot of moaning from Grosjean over the last couple of years, but this I can agree, in retrospect, is likely pretty harsh, and if Haas can prove it with telemetry, then I’d think they’d be quite within their rights to appeal if the regulations allow

      3. IF he really had a slow puncture, that really should at least mean that the FIA takes back those penalty points he also got for the incident (the in race penalty clearly cannot be)

      4. Looks at onboard of race start from K-Mag’s car, it Stoffel’s front wing which might have punctured Grosjean’s left rear wheel in Senna S. In this case sadly looks like Grosjean was right and he got penalty unfairly for what might have been a racing incident.

    2. Wait for Ocon’s “He tried to kill me” tweet in 3…2…1..

      1. He’s not Rubens Barichello you know

    3. Excuses, excuses.

    4. He had to backoff as the SC light went on (also on his dashbord) but didn’t as the rest is excuses he just drove Ocon out the race. 10 seconds is way too light!! atleast 3 points on his license too.

    5. He could have data afterwards concerning the puncture, so he could be right on that one, at least its quite stupid to say if not in data which most of us here dont have access to.
      Remember, what you Think about others says more about you than the others:)

    6. It would be interesting to see if the team has any data on the tyre pressure dropping, it did look like quite a sudden oversteer moment although the Haas does seem to be a bit of handful to drive generally. The penalty was too harsh in my view, when a car is on the outside you have to put more lock on and hence more likely to oversteer, it was a lose lose situation really. Ocon was definitely not at fault but it seemed a bit risky to overtake on the outside of that corner considering he would have easily passed Grosjean later in the lap.

    7. Haas have the most boring drivers line up in the paddock. A total waste of F1 seats. I still cannot believe how both drivers were confirmed so early in the season were they could have signed at least one of the two talented Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Giovinazzi and still get a good discount on the power unit price.

      1. This may be the most stupid comment ever…
        GIO showed his pace in FP2 – look at the results if you can read…

        MAG and GRO are within 1/100 seconds in FP3 – they are really pacing each other and good friends. too – having a really great teamwork. Young/Old – they are doing a fantastic job. MAG got a 8.th last race in the slowest car on the grid (according to the qualify) and GRO have done great races too.. they are fighting TR, Mclaren and Renault with less than 1/3 of the crew..
        They should sign both drivers for 2 years more..the limit is the car NOT the drivers.. GIO holds the crash/lap record and is very slow- so he is not worthy for anything in F1…start watching F1 before writing..

        1. The guy has much less mileage with the car to be as quick as the main drivers right of the bat.
          But give him a proper winter testing and he can be better then both.
          KMag only signed with them cuz he wanted to survive and they offered him a 2 year deal, Renault just one.
          So he probably is getting the boot in 12 months and saying goodbye for good.

          Grosjean, well, he crashes all the time, moans all the time, i can’t believe they are happy with him. Two years complaining about the brakes and his two team mates did not have such problems. They want to be bigger and are already looking outside of the window for new blood.

          1. The Haas drivers level do match the car level…no need for a more expensive driver when the car is 1 sec too slow.. what needed is aero experts and a better chassis…

            GIO is a laugh compared to MAG or GRO..he is even older than MAG – and missing 4 seasons of experience in F1…would say he didn’t make the cut in time…he is a Italien fainted hope for a possible F1 Ferrari driver…he will be out of F1 before the Haas drivers..

    8. I think they both had a moment simultaneously. The stewards were stupid.

      1. That was my view too, looked like they both went in too hot. I thought the 10 second penalty was OK for Grosjean (assuming he didn’t have a puncture), but the license points weren’t warranted.

    9. 1. Grosjean was hit on the left rear tyre by Vandoorne in turn 1.

      2. Shouldn’t Ocon have backed out of the overtake anyway because the Safety Car lights came on? It’s hard to see when the lights came on exactly, but they were flashing prominently when both cars went up the run-off.

    10. I didn’t think about this yesterday, but I bet the FIA had the data showing if there was a puncture or not before making their decision. If the FIA didn’t have the data and there was a puncture we will hear about it from Gunther.

    11. Michael Brown (@)
      13th November 2017, 19:54

      I find this penalty to be inconsistent with previous stewards’ judgments. They tend to favour the driver on the racing line and apex, which was Grosjean in this case.

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