It is difficult to understand what is going on with Romain Grosjean.
In 2015 I wrote a piece about Grosjean where I suggest that racing for the factory Renault F1 Team is his life long dream. I think that underlying gestalt, sub-conscience motivation, is beginning to manifest in his brake issues.
Kevin Magnussen had a good qualifying session for the Haas F1 Team. He advanced to the second qualifying round where he finished P14. Grosjean blames his last place P20 start on his brakes. Last Place start….
The Haas Team tried changing their brake vendors from Brembo to Carbon Industries. They reverted back to Brembo for qualifying. It seems that the team may be going through the paces in order to demonstrate to Romain Grosjean that there may be more to the problem than the braking vendor.
Where is Grosjean’s head? We cannot know… but surely the team knows if they have a problem.
Is the eve of the Russian Grand Prix the wrong time to suggest putting Alexander Rossi in that seat for 2018? We love Romain, but he loves Renault. Can you blame Grosjean for perhaps wanting a Renault seat? In the mean time, Rossi is advancing up the Indy grid, upping his value as the most underrated F1 driver, not in F1.