From spectacular crash to miraculous escape, the story of Romain Grosjean

Sunday, November 29, 2020. The Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain. 5.13 pm. On the third corner of the first lap, Romain Grosjean’s car veered off the track after colliding with Russian Daniil Kvyat and hit the safety barriers at 220 km/h.

The car was cut in half and was instantly engulfed in flames. After an agonising 28 seconds, Grosjean finally managed to clamber out of his car.

Formula One is a high-risk sport. Spectators, and even teams and drivers, sometimes forget how much the safety measures on cars and at circuits have improved since Niki Lauda’s accident in 1976 or the terrible crash that killed the legendary Ayrton Senna in 1994. These high-speed events last three days, from practice on Friday to qualifying on Saturday and finally the race on Sunday.

The 34-year-old French-Swiss driver made a miraculous escape, with just burns on his hands. The accident deprived him of his F1 farewell because he was forced to miss the two remaining races of the season and no team had signed him for 2021. The spectacular images of the crash were flashed around the world and everyone wanted to speak to Grosjean. Thanks to its F1 specialist Raphaëlle Peltier who has covered the sport since 2017 and was at the race, AFP obtained an interview with a relieved and smiling Grosjean.

After four seasons interviewing drivers and absorbing information from the teams and the drivers, Raphaëlle Peltier is a well-known face among the F1 press pack. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, few journalists have been attending races.

Just a group of 20 text reporters, compared to around 100 under normal circumstances, are following the circuit and AFP is among them. Thus, Grosjean’s media representative gave a positive and immediate ‘yes’ to Raphaëlle’s request for a one-to-one interview. It was done on Zoom as coronavirus rules forbid text journalists from meeting the drivers in person, but AFP was able to use the images from the recording. L’Equipe and specialist French publication Auto-Hedbo were the only other media accorded such an interview. Everyone else had to do with a virtual press conference, first in French, and then in English two days later.