“We had a brake fire”– Romain Grosjean rises from the fire to extinguish it in the Detroit Grand Prix after a brake failure.
Romain Grosjean would not expect to battle against any fire after what had happened to him in Bahrain last year. But the Frenchman put on a brave attempt to extinguish the fire that erupted from his car during IndyCar’s Detroit Grand Prix.
Fortunately, this was a much smaller blaze, and as soon Grosjean realized the hazard, he ran back to a marshal, who handed him a fire extinguisher.
As soon as Grosjean was about to use that extinguisher to blow out the flames, the safety team arrived, and one of the members moved him away from the car, though Grosjean displayed little annoyance with that act from the safety team member.
But in the end, he had to comply with his instruction, and the situation was under control. In the end, it was Grosjean, the phoenix, who once again came out of the fire, even if it was a stunted one.
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WOW. Romain Grosjean – the man who walked out of fire last year – just ran back to his car on fire this time to try and put it out.
Remarkable stuff from @RGrosjean. #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/A7eWwFfbTs
— IndyCar on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) June 13, 2021
Disappointing week in Detroit
It was a pretty tough weekend for Grosjean, who crashed out of the first race with five laps to spare and now reliability issues in the second race left him with zero points to offer to his team.
“It was a pretty eventful weekend in Detroit,” Grosjean said. “I think we had two mega qualifying results with a third and fifth. [On Saturday] We struggled a bit more with the balance. But we were hanging in there at the restart following the red flag and we were looking good.”
“I made an attacking move on Simon Pagenaud but sadly we touched, and it caused a puncture. After that, I was running at the back and I was trying to find some pace, but I was a bit optimistic, and I ended up in the wall.”
On his Sunday race performance, he added: “I got sandwiched at the race start and I lost a fair bit of positions. Then we tried to come into the race, but I picked up a drive-through penalty and we tried to come back from there.”
“Eventually we had a brake fire, and I had to extinguish a fire, but we’re all good here! I think the positive of the day is that we improved the car a lot from yesterday and we can now look forward to Road America.”
