As I sit opposite him the Matech Competition hospitality unit I am fully aware that Romain Grosjean wants to be back in Formula One.
The Frenchman, who replaced Nelson Piquet Jr. at Renault last year, is now part of the Swiss based outfit's campaign in the FIA GT1 World Championship after a late deal. However, despite his position in the team and their race win in the opening round of the season the 24-year-old has already admitted this is not his long term plan.
Indeed, while I am talking to him he seems genuinely enthusiastic in talking about the GT1 championship, but admits the move “was not a question of forgetting single seaters, just let's say a year in between.”
It is, of course, a plan the rest of the team are aware of, which is perhaps why they are keen to limit the number of questions their driver is asked about F1.
But what sort of option would bring him back to F1, I ask him, wondering whether he would leave a race winning GT1 team for the likes of struggling F1 teams like Virgin, Lotus, HRT or even whatever team emerges as the next new team, joining in 2011.
“It depends on the opportunity,” he tells me. “We have to be open minded, the situation is different than what it was two years ago,” he continues, suggesting, at least in my mind that he would at least consider going back with one of the new teams.
“If there is a good opportunity for me to be into Formula One I will take it for sure and I never hide that the idea is to go back in 2011”.
I am itching to ask him exactly what he considers a “good” opportunity is, but I feel it's best not to try his, or the team's, patience.
Deciding to move onto something equally divisive I ask him his opinion of the new Silverstone 'Arena' circuit – a subject that has split drivers all weekend.
“I don't like the new Silverstone so much, to be honest,” he explains, having driven the previous layout in a GP2 car. “I think Silverstone was a historical track and we should have kept it, there is nothing really very interesting in the new part unfortunately.”
I mention Bridge corner, perhaps the highest-profile casualty of the change. It is a corner Grosjean misses, describing it as “beautiful” and “fantastic”.
“Now we've lost it and we didn't gain anything.”
You can read the full article from when TCF interviewed Grosjean and teammate Thomas Mutsch here.
