In his appearance at IndyCar’s pre-season press event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday, Romain Grosjean was introduced as a “five time race runner-up.”
While in no way intended as a backhanded compliment, that did reflect how frustratingly close the former Formula 1 driver has come to that breakthrough success in the series he has competed in since 2021.
But Grosjean’s prospects of ending that winless run look distinctly less promising now than they did 12 months ago. He split from Andretti at the end of last year and kept his place in IndyCar by joining the newer, smaller operation at Juncos Hollinger.
However, ahead of his fourth season in the series since leaving Formula 1, Grosjean said that he was “excited” to see what his newest team – one of the smallest in the current IndyCar field – will be capable of achieving this season.
“It’s the third [team] in four years, so I’m getting used to it,” Grosjean said. “Obviously it’s always a challenge. It’s always positive – there’s always things we need to adapt. But as I say, everyone is super open-minded.
“I’m excited to see what we can do together. I’m realistic of where we are and what we need to do. But it’s IndyCar and anything can happen on-track. We’ll make sure that we seize every opportunity that we can.”
Grosjean arrived in the series with the Dale Coyne team in 2021 following his departure from Haas and Formula 1 at the end of 2020. Despite not competing in any oval races through that first season, Grosjean secured his first pole position at the Indianapolis road course and took three podium finishes – one at each of the two races on that track, and another in the penultimate round of the year at Laguna Seca.
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His impressive exploits in his first year in the championship secured him a full-time drive with Andretti, one of IndyCar’s biggest teams. However, despite three more podium finishes over those two seasons, he was out-scored by team mates Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta in 2022 and again by Herta and Kyle Kirkwood last year. Grosjean finished in the top 10 only three times over the 17 rounds and retired due to mistakes or being caught up in accidents six times.
Andretti opted not to continue with the still win-less Grosjean for a third season, downsizing from a…
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