“That won’t be possible” – Mercedes have confirmed the schedule of the events marking the F1 return of Romain Grosjean, after the preponement of the French Grand Prix.
The cancellation of the Canadian GP has set in motion a chain of decisions that has ultimately impacted a certain Romain Grosjean.
Turkey was the beneficiary of the aforementioned cancellation, but its red-listing by the United Kingdom has undone that. Turkey now stands cancelled too, with Austria set to host a double-header yet again – after last season. This has resulted in the French GP being preponed, throwing a spanner in the works of Mercedes’ plans for Grosjean’s dream F1 return.
Romain Grosjean and his return to F1
The demo runs planned on the day of the race at Paul Ricard now clashes with the IndyCar Series event at Road America. The Frenchman has given his commitment of participation to his team Dale Coyne Racing. As a silver lining, Mercedes have confirmed the test run on June 29 on the same circuit will go ahead, as planned.
Grosjean had recently revealed how the entire dream event was set in motion, while he was still in the hospital, post the Sakhir fireball crash.
“It was all Toto. You know, when I was in my hospital bed in Bahrain, someone was helping me to open the things on my mobile phone, because I didn’t have any fingers to use.
And then friends told me ‘Oh, Toto says you could have a test in a Mercedes if you don’t make it back to Abu Dhabi’. And I’m like, ‘Oh okay, that’s, you know, that is super cool.
“Obviously, at the time, I really liked it. But I wanted to come back to Abu Dhabi until the day it wasn’t going to happen. And then I went back home, had a bit of recovery and then eventually got a call from Mercedes.
“And it says, ‘Okay, so here are the dates that we could do it, seat fit will be on that date, you could do a little bit of simulator as well, and how does that work for you and are you up for it?’ Bloody hell, of course I’m up for it!
He added: “It is an incredible chance. Just for few things. I’m still a Formula 1 fan. I still watch the races. I have been driving it, but now I get to drive the 2019 world champion car, which at the end is not too far from the 2020, which was probably the fastest Formula 1 car ever built.
“And I drive it without pressure, you know, without having a test day to complete few test things and go through a programme and so on. Yes we can have a programme, but it’s more [like] let’s go and have some fun.”
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