Grosjean criticizes “absurd” penalty at Paul Ricard

For touching the Force India Esteban Ocon initially, the pilot Haas was penalized by 5 seconds at the Circuit Paul Ricard, which prevented him from scoring his first point of the season by relegating him to 11th place.

« I only discovered this morning the onboard of my flight and for me the penalty is a complete absurdity, said Grosjean during the media day of the Austrian Grand Prix. Maybe the team will go see (the FIA) to try to understand. We won't be able to have it removed, but the 2 points on the license, we'll see if there's a way to discuss.

I see that I am off to a good start, which is not the case with (Charles) Leclerc. I go to his left, he pushes me quite a bit to the left. I find myself almost at the edge of the track and I can't see what was in my blind spot. But there was Esteban, which I found out afterwards.

I wanted to avoid contact with my front wing so I moved a little to the left and it turned out that there was Esteban. There's not much different to do. When you are not far from the edge of the track, you cannot imagine that there is a car there ».

As mid-season approaches, Grosjean has still not opened his account when his teammate Kevin Magnussen has already collected 27 units. If Haas has had a few bad weekends like in Monaco, the American team is often in the fight for the honorary title of “best of the others” behind Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull.

« We will try to score our first points of the season, added Grosjean when discussing his objectives for the Austrian weekend. Ideally, we would like to finish 7th and 8th and I think we are capable of doing so in terms of performance. If things happen this weekend, we will try to take advantage of it. It’s a circuit where we have done well in the past ».

By finishing 6th at the Red Bull Ring 12 months earlier, Grosjean had in fact achieved his best performance of the 2017 season at Spielberg.