Romain Grosjean was left asking “what if?” after retiring from the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
The Lotus driver was caught up in a collision at the start of the race at a rain-soaked Circuit of the Americas, and the damage sustained ultimately forced the Frenchman to retire.
“I had a good start, but in the middle of the first corner I felt a hit from behind. This gave me a puncture and the damage meant that the floor and braking cooling ducts were damaged. We tried continuing but the brake temperatures were just too high and we had to retire for safety reasons.”
Grosjean, who will move to the new Haas F1 team for next season, felt the incident denied the team a chance of a strong result.
“It’s a shame because it would have been a good race as far as we know with the experience we have and the set-up we were on… Everything should have been quite nice but now we’ll never know!”
