Romain Grosjean has successfully completed his first Formula 1 test since his fireball crash at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix brought his F1 career to a premature end.
Grosjean’s departure from Haas and the F1 grid at the end of 2020 came two races earlier than planned when burns sustained in a frightening crash in Bahrain ruled him out of the Sakhir and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix.
Grosjean left F1 to race in IndyCar and sportscars, but there was always the hope he’d be able to return to the F1 cockpit to get some proper closure on his F1 career.
As he was ruled out of the 2020 season finale, Grosjean hadn’t even been able to use the special one-off helmet designed by his children that he’s been planning to.
Mercedes offered Grosjean a test soon after his crash, but that never came to fruition for logistical reasons. Thankfully, half a decade later, Haas stepped in and gave Grosjean his F1 comeback at Mugello on Friday.
That’s only possible because Haas has started a Testing of Previous Cars programme in 2025 in partnership with technical partner Toyota Gazoo Racing. It's given Super Formula champions Ritomo Miyata and Sho Tsuboi their F1 test debuts - and even team owner Gene Haas and team boss Ayao Komatsu got behind the wheel of an F1 car for the first time at Goodwood.
It was Grosjean's turn when he drove the Haas VF-23 at a rain-soaked Mugello circuit on Friday.
“It was a special day. Gene Haas and Ayao Komatsu made it happen,” Grosjean, who drove for Haas from 2016 to 2020, said.
“It was a wet day [but] fantastic. I felt a bit rusty at first, then everything came back.
“I even got to do a standing start and my last standing start was Bahrain 2020, so this time it turned out way better.
“[I’m] very grateful, a unique opportunity, to see some of the people that were in Australia 2016, and get to drive the new generation of car. It was fantastic. I’m very grateful, there are no other words.”
Despite the wet conditions, The Race understands Grosjean was still able to get decent mileage aboard the Haas.
And the conditions improved by the time IndyCar race winner turned F1 TV pundit James Hinchcliffe made his F1 test debut, who was able to bolt on slicks for his final run - "an incredible machine, a day I'll remember for a long time".
A more fitting farewell
Many of Grosjean’s original Haas crew were involved in the team with now-team boss Komatsu serving as Grosjean’s race engineer for the day, a partnership the duo started at Lotus Renault in the early 2010s.
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur also paid a visit to the garage. He was present for the second day of Ferrari’s Pirelli tyre test at Mugello with the team’s reserve driver Zhou Guanyu driving alongside Charles Leclerc.
Ferrari and Pirelli helped Haas give Grosjean’s day a fittingly warm end.
“They made me cry at the end of the day, I kept my visor down but for my last out-lap, everyone from Ferrari, Pirelli, Haas was here, clapping and giving me an ovation,” Grosjean said.
“Something I was expecting in Abu Dhabi 2020, but it was even better today.”
You can certainly argue for or against Grosjean deserving longer in F1 than he got, but it’s undeniable that his F1 venture deserved better than being ruled out of the final two races with injury.
Thankfully, Haas has corrected the injustice in a small way that clearly means an awful lot to its first F1 driver.
