Recollecting Romain Grosjean’s Not So Epic 2018 Azerbaijan GP

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix of 2019 is only a few hours away from us. A lot could be expected out of this premier racing event, about to undergo what’ll be only its fourth installation. While the likes of Hamilton and Vettel, Bottas and Leclerc will have their task cut out in going on an out-and-out battle for supremacy on the turf, one man, in particular, will be curious to score some points.

At least, he ought to do some in the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Wondering who that is?

While his career hasn’t seen the lows or bore the downhill sagas that the likes of a Jolyon Palmer and Pastor Maldonado have seen, 33-year-old Romain Grosjean isn’t exactly a hot property in F1- is he?

Surely talented and hence, contesting in his tenth year in F1, Romain Grosjean is also not the most successful names around. For starters, the mention of his name doesn’t really send a tizzy down a drivers’ spine.

Over the course of the past decade, Romain has collected 10 podiums and no race wins. If you are Nico Hulkenberg, you’d take that any day. But here’s something that Romain Grosjean may not be able to digest, not one bit.

Romain Grosjean, who is yet to score a point in the 2019 F1 season, has never scored a point at Baku, home to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. To that end, that he endured a torrid race in 2018 makes matters only laughable if one might put it that way.

Even as the current season is barely 3 races old, it’s hard to discount the fact that the Swiss-French racing driver hasn’t even managed to break into the top ten once. Does that bother him? Moreover, does that bother Haas, a team for which Kevin Magnussen, Grosjean’s teammate, has already scored 8 points, courtesy a strong P6 at the season-opener?

But one reckons, there are bigger things to talk about, isn’t it?

Here’s what happened to the noted Haas driver, who finished 11th in his maiden home race at France in 2018.

Grosjean, who was running in tenth in the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix managed to crash despite driving under the safety car. How strange must that have felt?

On Lap 42, with just 9 laps to go, Grosjean, arguably in a bid to get temperatures onto the tyres managed to crash by the side of the wall. Not that there haven’t been stranger instances than this one before. But one wonders about the impact of the move- if one could indeed call it that- and the result it fetched Romain Grosjean, who’s been no stranger to internet memes, social media going as far as calling him ‘Crashjean?’

Grosjean, who was more successful in his outings at Lotus-Renault, would’ve certainly wanted a better 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, a contest wherein he managed P13 while his teammate, Magnussen scored a strong seventh. Isn’t it?

So all said and done, even as Grosjean at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix doesn’t appear to be a happy marriage, what is it that the contest can bring from one of the sport’s talented albeit underachievers this year?