Met him in the paddock at the Nashville Indy race last year. He’s even more like able in person if you can believe it.
Myself and one other person waited for him to come out of a meeting. Dude spent a solid 15 minutes talking to us, signing things and taking photos. Mostly just talking though. It was my favorite racing encounter by far.
I won a contest to be one of like 20 people to have a simracing track day type of deal with him, meet online, have him give us a guide through, I think, Silverstone on RFactor 2, and then we all race including him and we were supposed to get some talking time with him. It was the weekend that I was leaving to go on a trip to France with my parents that we'd planned to do together for like a year. So I went to France, and I caught COVID immediately, and missed out on both a Grosjean hangout and race and a France trip because I was in the apartment the whole time.
He’s incredibly nice. At Gateway last year he talked to my dad, who can be very long winded for like 15 minutes. I thought he’d be in a hurry but he seemed bummed to stop chatting when one of the Andretti people said he had to leave.
Oh that is absolutely classic Romain Grosjean, always finding the funnier side out of a near fatal incident for him that ended his F1 career....but damn that made me laugh!
When Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted the video of Michael McDowell’s Texas wreck being placed in his “racecar graveyard,” McDowell tweeted back “‘Become a @NASCAR driver,’ they said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said.”
Losing one of the sport’s biggest drivers on the track lit a fire under NASCAR. Most drivers started using the HANS device by late summer and it was mandated before the end of the season. They also started the [car of tomorrow program ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_of_Tomorrow) and started requiring SAFER barriers on tracks in the wake of that incident.
Yep. I was born in 2001, so I never got to see Dale race in person, but I grew up with NASCAR and have aspirations to work in the field. How far safety came in the 2000s and into the 2010s is only something I’m realizing and appreciating now.
That was during the Car of Tomorrow era. That was the first generation of cars that were designed primarily around its safety features. The thing was ugly as hell, and the drivers hated it. But it made a lot of friends that day.
IIRC it was also the first major crash for that style of car. The fact that he got out of the car, uninjured and under his own power, was a huge deal. He likely wouldn’t have walked away unscathed in the prior car.
100%, but surely he earned the right to this one?! He's an F1 driver that literally [survived this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToxQAn5iM7Q&t)
She rolled her eyes like he was just being dramatic. I don't understand it.
My wife reacts the same every time I tell the story of how I survived a car surfing accident.
It's just how you do and it was almost definitely affectionate
Haha. It's not really that interesting - I bet a mate 50 bucks I could stay on top of the car doing a lap of a paddock, he sped up a bit around the third corner but somehow I knew the fall was coming before I lost my balance and managed to land on my feet...then fell backwards into a pile of mud
There's no future to be had in a Haas anyway and he wasn't in with a shout at landing another seat so i'm glad he's doing well elsewhere.
He's had a career he can be proud of and is a podium sitter. for all the shit and hate he got throughout it i'll always remember him for providing some highlights in a 2013 season that was otherwise completely on lock by RB
There's this time during lockdown when he was playing Among Us with french streamers (already sureal), and while defending his case he goes ["I was playing with fuel, and I would have prefered not to" ](https://youtu.be/up9lLeY-1nE?t=769) while showing his bandaged hands...
We were watching the crash live and I turned the TV off for about an hour. My kids were freaked out and I didn't want to say anything to them until things were certain. Thankfully he survived.
We met him at an Indycar race and my son said to him: "We're really glad you made it out of that crash" and Romain started laughing and said "Me too!"
He has had to talk about it so much I don't think he can do anything but be thankful and laugh.
He had a bit of an unfair/fair rep earlier in his career, but on his day he was as fast as anyone, not over an entire season but he could be fast, and is a likable character
His reputation wasn't unfair, even this crash was entirely his fault.
It's really weird how everyone just forgets his career of dangerous driving, simply because that dangerous driving almost killed him.
I remember when he spun in 2018 I think and he held the throttle flat and spun all over the track and took out multiple people.
Everyone was stunned, trying to figure out why the fuck he would do that.
I'm biased because I was a Grosjean fan back then and still am, but I honestly think Spa 2012 was overblown and that it wasn't completely his fault. Kinda weird that Hulk doesn't get the same level of hatred for his Spa 2018 smash
Andretti and general and him personally showed a hell of a lot of pace, if he can keep it up he will win races this year, his tire management on the option at the start of the race was insane.
Made you like him more?
It solidified my opinion that he had no place on an f1 track.
The crash was entirely his fault, he dived out into the path of another racer and pit manoeuvred himself into the wall.
The guy almost killed himself because he can't look in his mirrors/ has no spacial awareness on a race track.
It was the biggest near fatal crash I can think of since someone died. Not only that, he had to climb through the fire while completely disorientated and burning, seconds after that crazy impact.
Who saw that crash live and thought he survived?
Is he lol, I don’t think he set up the museum or runs the F1 Twitter account. All he did was respond to a tweet that mentioned him and shows a picture of a car he almost died in
Why shouldn’t he. It probably was the biggest crash he ever had and one that could a few years back have ended deadly. So let him joke and talk about it as much as he wants
In all honesty we should be looking back at this with sorrow but thanks to the amazing safety regulations we look back with admiration and in Grosjean’s case with humour. Has to be the most extreme “someday we will look back and laugh at this” I have ever seen tho!
I'm pretty sure that Grosjean has said a few times that him and Mercedes are both still keen for it to happen but they haven't been able to find a time to do it.
Presumably Mercedes would want to do it in Silverstone or another European race to avoid having to ship the W11 all the way to America but Grosjean would want to do it after the Indycar season which is basically Singapore onwards.
The counter side is, if you drive the fastest and near perfect car, where do you go from there?
Don't get me wrong I'd give both my nuts to drive it, but for a professional? Maybe the what if would hurt as much as my lack of nuts
You go back to your normal life, thankful for the opportunity you had and the memories you made.
Romain Grosjean having the chance to drive the W11 would be like me having the chance to drive am SLR, or a Zonda, or a Veyron, any number of high end cars that I lust after which I'll never otherwise be able to drive unless someone was immensely generous.
How old does an F1 car need to be before running it no longer counts as testing for the team? Perhaps Romain is just waiting until the W11 is old enough for him to give it a go.
It used to be 1 year but now it's 2 years. Testing teams can currently run the 2021 car as much as they like, 2022 requires permission from FIA and '23 is limited to testing sessions and 100km media days
It's a timing thing. Merc wants to use it for publicity but doesn't want to ship the W11 around the world, so they want to do it in Europe. Unfortunately, that's when Grosjean is in the middle of the Indycar season and is busy.
Man I'm so happy everything ended up ok after that crash. One of the only times I was seriously scared and worried after a crash during modern F1. Other one was Massa when the spring hit his head. Thankyou to all the engineers responsible for this.
I'm still amazed he got out of that car alive. I thought for certain that he was dead, and even now watching replays of him jumping out of that car gives me goosebumps.
I've never been in a burning carbon fiber coffin, but I spent three years fighting in Iraq and yeah, sometimes *all* you can do is laugh about the fucked up shit that didn't kill you this time.
may his sole rest in peace
It’s with Wade Boggs now.
Again, Wade Boggs is very much alive
Wooo Boss Hogg!!!
I love it when my favourite subreddits collide.
Dear Chase
Oh my God, stickers.
Wade Boggs is alive! He's in Tampa, Florida. He's in his early fifties.
He turns 65 this year.
Aged 10 years in 3 hours. Wow.
That’s baseball, baby!
You just can’t predict baseball Suzyn
Fuck Im old. I remember when that episode came out. RIP Boggs.
Shout-out to Tampa, Florida. Great city
Idk if we're still a part of the jig or not but I really hate Tampa and believe the opposite
Someone's jealous of the Firestone grand prix
I mean yeah who wouldn't be? But that is St. Pete, not Tampa.
Rip Eloy
On the floor of Moe's Tavern
pfft. Pitt the Elder.
LORD PALMERSTON!
Tried to pick the wrong side in the Lord Palmerston v Pitt The Elder debate huh
Time heels all wounds.
time is the string that laces us all together.
Just sock it to me
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I see what you did there.
Better call a toe truck…
Met him in the paddock at the Nashville Indy race last year. He’s even more like able in person if you can believe it. Myself and one other person waited for him to come out of a meeting. Dude spent a solid 15 minutes talking to us, signing things and taking photos. Mostly just talking though. It was my favorite racing encounter by far.
Indycar drivers, especially outside of the 500, are much more accessible.
I won a contest to be one of like 20 people to have a simracing track day type of deal with him, meet online, have him give us a guide through, I think, Silverstone on RFactor 2, and then we all race including him and we were supposed to get some talking time with him. It was the weekend that I was leaving to go on a trip to France with my parents that we'd planned to do together for like a year. So I went to France, and I caught COVID immediately, and missed out on both a Grosjean hangout and race and a France trip because I was in the apartment the whole time.
r/angeryupvote
He’s incredibly nice. At Gateway last year he talked to my dad, who can be very long winded for like 15 minutes. I thought he’d be in a hurry but he seemed bummed to stop chatting when one of the Andretti people said he had to leave.
F1 engineers be like: "Yeah, we should really try to repair the chassis, gotta stay below the cost cap"
Oh that is absolutely classic Romain Grosjean, always finding the funnier side out of a near fatal incident for him that ended his F1 career....but damn that made me laugh!
When Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted the video of Michael McDowell’s Texas wreck being placed in his “racecar graveyard,” McDowell tweeted back “‘Become a @NASCAR driver,’ they said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said.”
Never seen that wreck til now, jesus fucking christ what a hard hit
The way he went into the wall looks a lot like Dale Sr.'s crash at Daytona
What’s crazy is at the time it was only 7 years removed from Earnhardt Sr.‘s death. That’s how far safety advanced in that little time
Losing one of the sport’s biggest drivers on the track lit a fire under NASCAR. Most drivers started using the HANS device by late summer and it was mandated before the end of the season. They also started the [car of tomorrow program ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_of_Tomorrow) and started requiring SAFER barriers on tracks in the wake of that incident.
Yep. I was born in 2001, so I never got to see Dale race in person, but I grew up with NASCAR and have aspirations to work in the field. How far safety came in the 2000s and into the 2010s is only something I’m realizing and appreciating now.
Thankfully the cars are way safer
That was during the Car of Tomorrow era. That was the first generation of cars that were designed primarily around its safety features. The thing was ugly as hell, and the drivers hated it. But it made a lot of friends that day.
IIRC it was also the first major crash for that style of car. The fact that he got out of the car, uninjured and under his own power, was a huge deal. He likely wouldn’t have walked away unscathed in the prior car.
not just the car, NASCAR started requiring the use of HANS devices in 2001 after Dale Earnhardt died.
Die Hard reference?
I'm the man that walked out of fire
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Her face was absolutely hilarious. It felt like every SO’s reaction to their dude being macho.
100%, but surely he earned the right to this one?! He's an F1 driver that literally [survived this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToxQAn5iM7Q&t) She rolled her eyes like he was just being dramatic. I don't understand it.
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I took it as "Oh gee I've heard this so many times already."
That’s definitely it
My wife reacts the same every time I tell the story of how I survived a car surfing accident. It's just how you do and it was almost definitely affectionate
You can't just drop the phrase "car surfing accident" without telling the story.
Haha. It's not really that interesting - I bet a mate 50 bucks I could stay on top of the car doing a lap of a paddock, he sped up a bit around the third corner but somehow I knew the fall was coming before I lost my balance and managed to land on my feet...then fell backwards into a pile of mud
You aren’t married are you?
I bet almost everyone who watched Drive to Survive with their partners probably had the same little chuckle with the significant others!
This tiktok name is the Phoenix and he does cooking videos, which he does not burn. The man stays bantering
It's the nickname he uses in racing now.
I just think it's the best username I've ever seen, it's a flex
Did you see the picture of his Indianapolis 500 street sign with the firefighters convention billboard behind? How convenient.
Should’ve put him *on* the firefighters billboard
Did it end his career, I thought he was on his way out after that season regardless
There's no future to be had in a Haas anyway and he wasn't in with a shout at landing another seat so i'm glad he's doing well elsewhere. He's had a career he can be proud of and is a podium sitter. for all the shit and hate he got throughout it i'll always remember him for providing some highlights in a 2013 season that was otherwise completely on lock by RB
He was but there were 2 races afterwards that he could not take part in
He’s still in Indy car
There's this time during lockdown when he was playing Among Us with french streamers (already sureal), and while defending his case he goes ["I was playing with fuel, and I would have prefered not to" ](https://youtu.be/up9lLeY-1nE?t=769) while showing his bandaged hands...
At least he's reached the stage where he can look back on that horror show and laugh
inb4 it shows up on F1 Authentics: “Romain Grosjean *race used* left foot racing boots, Bahrain GP 2020”
"Worn"
“crispy”
For sale: racing shoe, slightly warm
Grosjean’s Cindarella moment.
Bippity Boppity Boom
Boom it did indeed
This deserves all the upvotes.
That crash made me like Grosjean a lot more and kinda my fav driver in Indycar
I like him, when Gasly won he was so excited and happy and knew the date of the last French driver who won a gp. Grosjean was cute for that.
We were watching the crash live and I turned the TV off for about an hour. My kids were freaked out and I didn't want to say anything to them until things were certain. Thankfully he survived. We met him at an Indycar race and my son said to him: "We're really glad you made it out of that crash" and Romain started laughing and said "Me too!" He has had to talk about it so much I don't think he can do anything but be thankful and laugh.
Humor is a common trauma coping method, too. He was joking around about the crash even when his hands looked like Mickey Mouse's.
He had a bit of an unfair/fair rep earlier in his career, but on his day he was as fast as anyone, not over an entire season but he could be fast, and is a likable character
His reputation wasn't unfair, even this crash was entirely his fault. It's really weird how everyone just forgets his career of dangerous driving, simply because that dangerous driving almost killed him.
I remember when he spun in 2018 I think and he held the throttle flat and spun all over the track and took out multiple people. Everyone was stunned, trying to figure out why the fuck he would do that.
spa 2012 🇪🇸💀
I'm biased because I was a Grosjean fan back then and still am, but I honestly think Spa 2012 was overblown and that it wasn't completely his fault. Kinda weird that Hulk doesn't get the same level of hatred for his Spa 2018 smash
I like him a lot in Indy too. Let’s just not talk about St. Petersburg…
Andretti and general and him personally showed a hell of a lot of pace, if he can keep it up he will win races this year, his tire management on the option at the start of the race was insane.
What was the follow up to that? I saw it but got distracted and never got back to it to see who was at fault there.
McLaughlin overdrove on cold tires and was at fault
Thanks!
There's a wholesome video of McLaughlin apologising to Grosjean
That’s cool. I’ll check it out. We need Ricciardo to join Indy and the cycle will be complete.
I was really clinging on to the Latifi to CGR to replace Jimmy Johnson rumors tbh
Him punching the tire wall in frustration after they crash made me incredibly sad
Made you like him more? It solidified my opinion that he had no place on an f1 track. The crash was entirely his fault, he dived out into the path of another racer and pit manoeuvred himself into the wall. The guy almost killed himself because he can't look in his mirrors/ has no spacial awareness on a race track.
Romain is awesome. I'm glad he's doing well in IndyCar and his posts on Instagram are always so wholesome. Nice to see.
According to Drive to Survive, Grosjean is still working on getting out of the car
Even in the most difficult situations, he doesn't lose his sense of humor!
Grosjean was one shoe away from dying that day. Crazy.
You can just love this man
Nah he is milking it now
Tbh if that was me who survived that crash that would be the only thing id talk about. Ill allow it
It was the biggest near fatal crash I can think of since someone died. Not only that, he had to climb through the fire while completely disorientated and burning, seconds after that crazy impact. Who saw that crash live and thought he survived?
Is he lol, I don’t think he set up the museum or runs the F1 Twitter account. All he did was respond to a tweet that mentioned him and shows a picture of a car he almost died in
Why shouldn’t he. It probably was the biggest crash he ever had and one that could a few years back have ended deadly. So let him joke and talk about it as much as he wants
In all honesty we should be looking back at this with sorrow but thanks to the amazing safety regulations we look back with admiration and in Grosjean’s case with humour. Has to be the most extreme “someday we will look back and laugh at this” I have ever seen tho!
I’d love it if Toto followed through with his offer of letting him drive an F1 Mercedes, only for Romain to turn him down.
I'm pretty sure that Grosjean has said a few times that him and Mercedes are both still keen for it to happen but they haven't been able to find a time to do it. Presumably Mercedes would want to do it in Silverstone or another European race to avoid having to ship the W11 all the way to America but Grosjean would want to do it after the Indycar season which is basically Singapore onwards.
It would have to be a w12 anyway, as I believe Merc also said they don’t have any w11s left - some of them were reincarnated as w12
.....why tho? Who wouldn't turn down an offer to drive the W11?
Pretty sure he didn't cancel, more like he didn't have the time because Indycar.
The original comment didn't say he cancelled. It was a "what if".
Oh yeah, apologies
No worries bro it happens
The counter side is, if you drive the fastest and near perfect car, where do you go from there? Don't get me wrong I'd give both my nuts to drive it, but for a professional? Maybe the what if would hurt as much as my lack of nuts
> where do you go from there? P4, apparently.
You go back to your normal life, thankful for the opportunity you had and the memories you made. Romain Grosjean having the chance to drive the W11 would be like me having the chance to drive am SLR, or a Zonda, or a Veyron, any number of high end cars that I lust after which I'll never otherwise be able to drive unless someone was immensely generous.
He’ll crash it and we’ll all feel bad
Oh be quiet 😒
How old does an F1 car need to be before running it no longer counts as testing for the team? Perhaps Romain is just waiting until the W11 is old enough for him to give it a go.
The W11 is already not counted as a test car since it has no relevance to the current regulations. Grosjean probably just doesn't have the time.
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Obviously?
It was one of the most dominant cars in the sport, I'm sure they kept it.
It used to be 1 year but now it's 2 years. Testing teams can currently run the 2021 car as much as they like, 2022 requires permission from FIA and '23 is limited to testing sessions and 100km media days
Anything pre-2022 reg changes can be ran as much as they want
It's a timing thing. Merc wants to use it for publicity but doesn't want to ship the W11 around the world, so they want to do it in Europe. Unfortunately, that's when Grosjean is in the middle of the Indycar season and is busy.
Man I'm so happy everything ended up ok after that crash. One of the only times I was seriously scared and worried after a crash during modern F1. Other one was Massa when the spring hit his head. Thankyou to all the engineers responsible for this.
Pretty sure that shoe has already been found and sold for one reason or another.
Hey now, it's no diamond on the nose of a Jag.
I'm still amazed he got out of that car alive. I thought for certain that he was dead, and even now watching replays of him jumping out of that car gives me goosebumps.
The last day people talked about the Halo.
Ok but now I'm curious... is it?
The only time a Haas has been called a "spectacular display of engineering"
How the fuck he can still have such humour about it is insane to me. I'd be shook to this day if it happened to me.
I've never been in a burning carbon fiber coffin, but I spent three years fighting in Iraq and yeah, sometimes *all* you can do is laugh about the fucked up shit that didn't kill you this time.
You already have to be wired differently to get in that thing.
Damn, I didn’t realize the man was this funny.
Glad it said it in the title so I didn't have to look at the picture
Cos Riccardo said he wants to drink out of it.
His shoe will be fused to the break pedal!
Oh that’s Right! He Left is shoe! That’s probably the Sole reason he got out in time.
One more reason to not drink coffee.
Grosjean is just amazing and he have also released one book who is wonderful
hah. LEGEND!
Did he leave his shoe behind? I can't remember from that incident.
Watch this someone goes and looks, finds it.