Romain Grosjean narrowly misses out on a top-10 finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Road Course
Step One Motorsports ambassador Romain Grosjean carried two second-place finishes in a row into the race weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course. This speedway is also the site of the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indy 500. However, for this weekend’s race, drivers only competed on portions of turns one and two and on the front straight of the famed oval, the rest of the course differing in layout. The GMR Grand Prix consisted of 85 laps in total with a race distance totaling 207.32 miles (333.65 kilometers). The 14-turn road course saw the competitors sweeping round the circuit at an average of 128.527 miles per hour (206.844 kilometers per hour) for the duration of the race, all while battling it out for the top step of the podium.
A tricky qualifying on Friday set Grosjean in P18 for the start of the race the following day, but the Swiss-French driver would not be deterred and set about making up ground from the moment the green flag waved, signaling the start of the GMR Grand Prix. However, he was required to go through the pits to change his front wing after chaos in the opening laps and emerged from the stop toward the back of the pack. Lap 18 brought another pitstop, this time for a change of tires. As the halfway point approached, Grosjean had diced his way up the field and into the top 10. After his next pit stop, he joined the order further back once more, and the fight up the order resumed. The Andretti driver stayed sharp and focused as the laps ticked down. In the closing phase of the race, Grosjean’s no. 28 car edged closer to the top 10 once again as he drove cleanly and showed strong race pace around every corner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course. Upon the end of the final lap, Grosjean crossed the line in P11 gathering more valuable points toward his championship fight.
Grosjean and IndyCar next race in Indianapolis, Indiana for the 107th running of the Indy500, held on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Oval (28 May 2023). However, there will be notable on-track action to look out for next weekend as, unlike other IndyCar Series race weekends, qualifying for the long-standing event will take place the weekend prior to the race date (20 to 21 May 2023).