French racing driver Romain Grosjean has angered animal rights group Peta for \u201cflippant\u201d comments after hitting a bird while testing for next month\u2019s Indianapolis 500.<\/p>\n
The driver, who survived a fireball crash<\/a> during the 2020 Formula One Bahrain GP, described the bird strike at around 230 mph in graphic terms this week.<\/p>\n \u201cI still have blood on my race suit, there were pieces of the bird on the rollbar. I couldn\u2019t see where I was going any more, there\u2019s plenty on the aero screen,\u201d he said. \u201cThe helmet stinks, the seat stinks. I didn\u2019t get any chicken for lunch; I just walked past it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mimi Bekhechi, the senior vice-president for Peta UK and Europe, accused the 40-year-old of lacking empathy.<\/p>\n \u201cBirds have feelings, apparently more than Grosjean does, considering that he seemed more concerned with his car, helmet, and suit \u2013 all replaceable \u2013 than the smash-up of this unsuspecting bird,\u201d Bekhechi said in a statement.<\/p>\n Peta highlighted the plight of birds raised in factory farms and promised to send Grosjean some plant-based chicken.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time Grosjean has struck an animal on a racetrack. In 2018 during practice for Formula One\u2019s Canadian Grand Prix, a groundhog got on the course as Grosjean drove through the 13th turn. The surprise, albeit unavoidable collision, damaged the nose of Grosjean\u2019s car<\/a> and drew his ire because he said race officials had not done enough to prevent it.<\/p>\n The Indianapolis 500 is on 24 May. Grosjean drives for the Dale Coyne Racing team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French racing driver Romain Grosjean has angered animal rights group Peta for \u201cflippant\u201d comments after hitting a bird…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-639523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639523","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=639523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}