Tuesday 9 October 2012

Romain Grosjean

The topic of conversation for most current F1 viewers is the issue of Romain Grosjean, or as I like to call it "a massive overreaction".

"My thoughts are that, again, he cannot use his mind - even in qualifying. He could've caused a big accident. He's paying for it and he doesn't understand that." Felipe Massa


“This guy will never learn if they don’t do something, because he is a very dangerous driver and he can hurt someone.”Sergio Perez



Firstly some facts, so far this season Romain has been involved in no less than 6 first lap incidents - and one more second lap incident. Clearly this is too much, and Romain payed the penalty for his error of judgement in Spa with a one race ban for Monza - Jerome D'Ambrosio taking his place. At the time is was considered harsh but fair, not only was he a repeat offender, but the incident could have been much more serious, especially involving Alonso's head. He sat out a race and then had a solid, quiet and unspectacular race in Singapore, and it was felt he had learnt his lesson. Fast-forward two weeks and he is involved in another crash, this time with Mark Webber which effectively ended his chance of major points. There is uproar, calls for more race bans, perhaps longer, or even more extreme  a complete ban from F1.

This is completely ridiculous standpoint. Take Pastor Maldanado for example, only 5 races ago people were asking for his exclusion, a bit of TLC, some coaching from Alex Wurz and the fact Grosjean has the limelight has led to some strong performance, beginning to remind us of his form in Spain. Even last season, Lewis Hamilton hogged the limelight, with numerous high profile crashes with Felipe Massa. This season Hamilton has arguably been perfect regarding race conduct (the less said about off-track troubles the better). Those calling for Grosjean's head should look to these examples and see that it is not that big a problem. There's already an offer from Sir Jackie Stewart for coaching, and some claim his most recent crash was a result of trying to avoid Perez, and getting unlucky.

To conclude, banning Grosjean would be a big overreaction. Just wait until the next hothead and all will be forgotten.

Also, Perez was referring to Maldanado and Massa was referring to Hamilton. See, easily forgotten.

1 comment:

  1. Very good points and I agree that he's been unlucky and now that the spotlight is on him, the pressure to not hit anyone is showing.

    He had a rather unspectacular Singapore race to show that he wasn't a danger.

    I read today that Bernie want Grosjean to have eye test to check his peripheral vision.

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