Roman Grosjean will return to the Formula 1 cockpit for the first time since his fiery crash at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix in Tests on Friday.
The Franco-Swiss driver will be driving a 2023 VF-23 to take part in testing the car in front of former team Haas (TPC) at Mugello. Muguero hosted the only Formula 1 Grand Prix, Tuscan Grand Prix, and in the 2020 season, Grosjean finished 12th in that race with Haas.
“We are extremely grateful to Ayao Komatsu for inviting us to join Mugero’s TPC, like Jean Haas and Komatsu,” says Grosjean. “To say I’m excited to go back behind the wheels of a Formula 1 car is of course an understatement.
“I can’t believe it’s almost five years later, but coming back and going out with my old team is really special. I’m excited to meet everyone. I’m sure I’m spending a bit of time remembering the old days, but I’m also keen on using it on the VF-23’s trackside agenda.
“Finally, my kids designed my helmet for what was meant to be my last Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi in 2020.
Many of Haas’s Heritage Division, which runs Haas’s TPC program, were part of the Grosjean crew while driving Haas, including Domince Haines, who oversaw the Grosjean race engineers in 2019 and ’20, and previously Grosjean race engineer Domince Haines. Ian Staniforth, former No. 1 race mechanic of Grosjean, is also there in his current abilities as the race team’s support chief, but current Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu was the director of trackside engineering during Grosjean’s stint at Haas, a race engineer for Lotus, where the pair were 10 podiums together.
“We are absolutely thrilled to bring Roman Grosjean back to his Formula 1 car for the first time in five years, but we are especially proud that he will be back in one of our cars.
“Roman and I have worked together throughout his entire Formula 1 career, so this test at Muguero is especially important to us as well.
“We are pleased that he embraced the opportunity to come with us and go back to the back of the wheel, which will be a special special as many members of the former crew return and witness it together.
“It’s a fun day and you should know the romance just like I did. He’s going to want to give him everything as usual, especially since we’ve been talking about making this happen for so long, I don’t expect anything less.”
The return of the Grosjean behind the wheels of a Formula 1 car takes a long time. He was previously to test Mercedes 2020 Mercedes-AMG W10 EQ Power+ – the car that won the race where Grosjean was in an accident – around the 2021 French Grand Prix. Since leaving F1 after the crash, Grosjean has participated in 64 NTT IndyCar Series races from Dale Coyne Racing, Andretti Global and Juncos Hollinger Racing, achieving six podium finishes. He is also part of Lamborghini’s factory driver lineup and has raced nine times in the GTD Pro and GTP class of the IMSA sports car series since 2023.
Like Grosjean, the winner of six IndyCar races and the 2016 Indianapolis 500 Polesitter James Hinchcliffe also created the F1 bow, and drives the VF-23.
