Romain Grosjean "cried" after agonising narrow IndyCar defeat
Crash.net · Sam Hall · 2026-08-17T09:41:28+00:00 · nguồn gốc
Romain Grosjean "cried" after agonising narrow IndyCar defeat
The former Formula 1 driver is still searching for his maiden IndyCar victory.
Romain Grosjean revealed he "cried a little" after narrowly missing out on a maiden IndyCar victory in Markham on Sunday.
The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham provided a chaotic race on Sunday, which was interrupted by six caution periods. Such was the frequency of the course car interventions, that Grosjean's Dale Coyne Racing team elected to pull the Frenchman in early for his final stop.
This proved to be a shrewd move, as Andretti driver Kyle Kirkwood hit the wall at Turn 3 just moments later, negating the time Grosjean had lost by pitting.
However, the Frenchman still needed further cautions to comfortably extend his fuel to the end of the race, but no more came. This left him a sitting duck when Marcus Ericsson, who had pitted significantly later, cruised up behind him with seven of the 90 laps remaining.
"At the end of the race I knew we had to go 37-ish laps on the tires, on the fuel,” Grosjean said. That was going to be a challenge. When I saw the #28 pitting, Marcus, I thought there was no way he would catch us. The #10 was behind me, which is always a worry. Opened the gap. We should be safe. Next thing I knew, the #28 was coming."
Without a race win in any series since the Hungarian GP2 round in 2011, he added: "I cried a little. I'm not going to lie. Yes, it's a long time. It sucks. I thought today when I pulled the gap to Palou, I thought that was good."
For former Sauber F1 driver Ericsson, this was his first victory since St. Petersburg in 2023.
"It comes from hard work, first of all," Ericsson said. "I had a terrible season last year. I lost a lot of confidence in myself and struggled with the car.
"It was a big reset over the winter. I worked very hard on myself, but also within the team, with my guys, to sort of try and get the car more to my liking, more in a window where I feel like I can perform and get the most out of myself.
“I think Will Power has been a big part of that, as well. Really driving the development on the setups in a certain direction, as well. That's been really, really good.
"Also the fact, like Ron (Ruzewski, Andretti Global team principal) touched on, we are Will, Kyle and myself, three really fast drivers that work really well together pushing the team forward. I think that's been paying off a lot, as well. Makes me really excited to know we're going to continue that into next year with the momentum we have right now."