Romain Grosjean endured what he called a ‘long afternoon’ at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Sunday, with his chances of scoring points during the Canadian Grand Prix being hurt on the opening lap by being in the wrong place at the wrong time heading into turn one.
Grosjean was running behind a three-way battle into the opening turn on lap one, with Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon in the middle of the track between Racing Point F1 Team’s Sergio Pérez and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi, with the Thai driver finding himself pinched between the other two that resulted in a broken front wing.
The unfortunate Grosjean was forced to take evading action across the run-off area at turn one, relegating him to the rear of the field and leaving him with a long afternoon ahead of him. He was even forced to throw some debris from Albon’s front wing from his cockpit!
Ultimately, he was able to gain a few positions to finish fourteenth, but there was not much more the Haas F1 Team driver felt he could do with the pace his car possessed on Sunday.
“It was a long afternoon,” said Grosjean. “Everything went south at the start; the guys take a lot of risks going three-wide. I just picked up all the damage.
“I was dead last, and after that we didn’t have much pace.”
Grosjean said there were a few laps when his VF-19 felt good but many others felt difficult, and time needs to be taken to analyse just why the pace during the race was as varying as it was so they can adapt for future events and fight for points once more.
“A few laps were good, then others were very difficult,” said the Frenchman. “We need to analyse everything, get a better understanding of how to go fast in the race.”
