Grosjean relishes ‘freedom’ of IndyCar racing after Laguna charge

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The reception that awaited Romain Grosjean after his meteoric rise to third place on Sunday in Monterey alone told a perfect little story.

The Swiss-born Frenchman crossed the peloton to close the final stint of the Firestone Grand Prix with the company’s fastest tires, brought to life a somewhat boring race for the win and set off in pursuit. championship leader Alex Palou and race leader Colton Herta.

Stopping for the last time on the 73rd lap of the 95-lap race, Grosjean took on a new set of alternative tires while Herta and Palou stopped for the slower primary rubber about 10 laps earlier, and with the lag grip and freshness, the man who dubbed himself ‘the Phoenix’ after escaping a fiery crash at last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix, has started to squeeze into the top 10.

Simon Pagenaud of Team Penske was the first to fall as Grosjean relieved him from sixth place on lap 79. Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing was next in Grosjean’s sights; the Swede was demoted to fifth place in the next lap. Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward also felt Grosjean’s sting on lap 80 with an insane pass outside of turn 2. Graham Rahal did his best to hold onto third place, but he didn’t. It was possible to stop the DCRwRWR pilot at the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Rahal held on with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda until the 84th lap, and with a secure podium, Grosjean lit the afterburners and started chasing Palou. With traffic impacting the CGR driver ahead, Grosjean took advantage of the opportunity; lap 82 was a perfect synthesis of their divergent fortunes as an unencumbered Grosjean completed the circuit in 1m14.3s against 1m15.5s for Palou, and there were plenty of laps ahead that were over a second longer. faster than the Spaniard was capable of producing.

The only thing that slowed Grosjean’s progress was a clash with CGR’s Jimmie Johnson atop the corkscrew on lap 89, which caused minor damage to the body of the # 51 Honda and, more importantly, , caused a delay sufficient to put Palou out of reach. the six towers that remained.

But Grosjean did not give up and continued to widen the gap until it was reduced to 1.7 seconds under the checkered flag. If winning his third podium of the season was not a gift enough, Grosjean has been cheered by hundreds of fans as if he had just won his first NTT IndyCar Series race.

This reception almost made Grosjean cry.

“It’s just amazing,” he said. “When I got the standing ovation, I almost cried, and I don’t cry very often. It was more than anything I could imagine. Without the fans, we wouldn’t be in the race. Without the fans, there would be no TV audience. If there is no audience, there is no sponsor. If there is no sponsor, there is no work. They are a very important part of what we do. But what they give me back is just amazing. So I wanted to share the podium with them.

In a ride that some older fans said was reminiscent of Alex Zanardi’s multiple assists at Monterey, Grosjean credited the independence given by the Dallara DW12 chassis and the IndyCar formula where the drivers and teams, rather than the technological differences, create opportunities to shine.

“It’s the freedom to drive the car the way you like it,” he said, drawing a comparison to the F1 cars he drove for a decade. “You don’t need to worry about charging mode, push mode, tire temperature, tire window, etc. You just get in the car, exit the pit lane, then push each turn. You play with your bars a bit. But like I said, you push, push, push, get in, pit, new tires.

In IndyCar, as a 34-year-old rookie, the man has found the best and happiest version of himself.

“The ability to enjoy every lap we do, to take advantage of the fact that you can be competitive in any team, done with the atmosphere in the paddock, obviously with the support of the fans, that’s all. that I have. I enjoyed it a lot, ”he said.



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