F1 <\/a>machinery since he sustained severe injuries in a fiery accident at the start of the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix.<\/p>\nGrosjean miraculously escaped the terrifying 137mph, 67G crash that split his Haas car in two and left him stuck in the cockpit as fire raged around him.<\/p>\n
As a result of his burn injuries, Grosjean was unable to take part in the final two F1 races of the 2020 season, before making the switch to IndyCar for the following year.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Mercedes had planned a special one-off test for Grosjean in France in 2021, but COVID-19 restrictions forced the event to be postponed.<\/p>\n
Many members of Grosjean\u2019s original Haas crew will be present for Friday\u2019s outing at Mugello.<\/p>\n
Team principal Ayao Komatsu, who was Grosjean\u2019s race engineer, will serve as race engineer once again.<\/p>\n
Former race engineer Dominic Haines, and Grosjean\u2019s long-serving no.1 race mechanic, Ian Staniforth, will also be in attendance at Mugello.<\/p>\n
Romain Grosjean excited for F1 comeback\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grosjean confirmed he will wear a helmet designed by his children that was originally intended for use in his final grand prix in Abu Dhabi in 2020.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m incredibly grateful to Gene Haas and to Ayao Komatsu for inviting me to participate in the TPC at Mugello,\u201d Grosjean said. \u201cTo say I\u2019m excited to get back behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car would naturally be an understatement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really can\u2019t believe it\u2019s been almost five years, but to come back and have this outing with my old team is truly something special. I\u2019m excited to see everyone, I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll spend a bit of time reminiscing about the old days, but I\u2019m also keen to be of use regarding the trackside agenda with the VF-23 \u2013 it’s great the team now has the TPC program as part of its on-going development.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, my kids had designed my helmet for what was meant to be my final grand prix in Abu Dhabi back in 2020 \u2013 I\u2019m at last going to be able to give it a go in a Formula 1 car on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Komatsu added: \u201cI\u2019m absolutely thrilled to be welcoming Romain Grosjean back into a Formula 1 car for the first time in five years but especially proud he\u2019s returning in one of our cars \u2013 it\u2019s only fitting.<\/p>\n
\u201cRomain and I have worked together throughout his entire Formula 1 career so this test at Mugello is of particular significance to us both. I\u2019m delighted he embraced the opportunity to come and get back behind the wheel with us, a day that\u2019s going to be made extra special by having so many members of the original crew back together to witness it.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should be a fun day and knowing Romain as I do, I know he\u2019ll want to give it his all as usual \u2013 I\u2019d expect nothing less, not least as we\u2019ve talked about making this happen for a long time now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Romain Grosjean will return to the cockpit of an F1 car for the first time since his horrific…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,5328,806,805,803,804,110154,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-167914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-haas","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-romain-grosjean","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}