Romain Grosjean feels at home after finishing pole on the IMS Road Course

Romain Grosjean is not an overly emotional type. In his brief racing career in the US, his words have done more than justice to express his satisfaction on a series where he feels he has a legitimate chance of winning.

When the 35-year-old rookie was asked on Friday evening whether IndyCar could be his long-term home, Grosjean, whose family still lives in Switzerland, dropped the exaggeration and clichés:

“I’ve started looking at homes in the US, if that’s the answer you want.”

Along with getting the P1 award ahead of Saturday’s GMR Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, that’s all you need to know about Grosjean’s revitalization at IndyCar.

“It’s like being back to life,” said Grosjean on Friday after displacing Josef Newgarden by a little more than a tenth a second in the Firestone Fast Six to put Dale Coyne Racing back on pole for the first time since 2018 Otherwise bring IndyCar. That’s what I was looking for. I love the atmosphere. I love the tracks. The car is fun to drive and we can do some good things. I am happier than I have been in a long time. “

Even Newgarden, who was sitting next to Grosjean in the IMS media center, couldn’t help but breathe heavily and wonder to the driver of the No. 52 Honda how different life must feel.

Grosjean compared the high spirits of a Pole in IndyCar with an easy 9th place a year ago with Haas F1 – his only race of the season in which he scored points. He had only three such placements in 2019 after 20 in his first three seasons with the American owner’s F1 team. After leaving his four-year stint at Lotus (2012-15), where Grosjean finished 10 podiums, including a Best of 2nd at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2012, his best result with Haas came in 2018 at the Austrian Grand Prix (4.).

And in almost 200 F1 starts, he never started on pole. In fact, Grosjean got angry when a media member reminded him how many days it had been since he’d started any race from pole position.

May 7, 2011 in GP2 (now known as Formula 2) in Istanbul: 3,660 to be precise.

“Yeah, 10 years sounds better,” he said with a chuckle. “When you get into Formula 1, you know that if you don’t have the best car, you are very unlikely to win races.

“The days I love are when you come to a racing weekend and have butterflies because you know if you do everything right you could end up on pole or try to win the race. I haven’t had a chance for that in recent years. “

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And it also comes less than six months after he nearly died in a fire-filled cockpit from a devastating accident in Bahrain that marked the end of his career in F1. It took Grosjean nearly three minutes to get out of the flames, an accomplishment that required numerous attempts to free himself from the debris of a mangled Armco barrier, battered cockpit, and safety halo freed by a chassis split in half.

He survived but suffered burns all over his body – the worst on his hands, which are still healing. Despite an initial setback from his wife and children, it didn’t take Grosjean long to decide that his racing career must continue.

A decade of traveling the world on race weekends, often ending in bitter frustration and culminating in a death defying fall, couldn’t be the end of this chapter of his life. Fortunately, Dale Coyne lost his entire driver’s stable in the off-season and was looking for talent and sponsorship money. Grosjean ticked more than all the boxes.

“Just look at his résumé and how great he was before he got into F1,” Coyne said on Friday’s broadcast. “We knew he could win races and pole.

“(Saturday) he can win a race.”

But first, said Grosjean, another challenge remains in its own right.

“First I have to get the whole field off to a rolling start,” he said. “It will be a first. But what a day for us. “

Email IndyStar motorsport reporter Nathan Brown at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.

More Romain Grosjean coverage

Season start:Johnson, Grosjean exceeds expectations on IndyCar debuts at Barber

Testing:Grosjean turns and learns in the first IndyCar test: “The real race is in the car.”

Take a step:“I wanted to go where I wanted”: Why Grosjean chose IndyCar