Romain Grosjean feels he and Nico Hulkenberg are a part of a era of drivers that had been born on the fallacious time to reach System 1.
Each the Frenchman and the German had been seen as future World Champions within the early elements of their careers, however neither ever obtained the possibility to drive a prime automotive and subsequently by no means received races, not to mention titles.
The possibilities of them ever doing so now look slim, with Grosjean leaving the grid on the finish of the season and Hulkenberg already absent from it, though he’s hoping to companion Max Verstappen at Purple Bull subsequent season.
Grosjean himself feels that the pair, in addition to a number of different drivers born on the identical time, had been unfortunate in that they entered F1 when older drivers crammed the highest seats and by the point mentioned drivers had left them, youthful ones had been coming by way of.
“You already know, if I give it some thought, possibly the 1986/87 era was the fallacious to be in,” he mentioned on the In The Pink podcast.
“Paul Di Resta, Nico Hulkenberg, myself, even Sebastian Buemi a little bit bit; all of us got here at a time when the highest seats had been taken, the previous guys wouldn’t depart System 1 but, and the younger ones got here after and we by no means actually obtained our likelihood. That’s simply the way in which it’s.
“There’s not a lot you possibly can management about that, and having 10 years in System 1 has been unbelievable. I believe I’ve achieved what I wished to. Clearly you all the time need to be a World Champion however you uncover that with out the correct instruments there isn’t any likelihood.
“Hopefully that may change sooner or later, as a result of I believe it will deliver System 1 to a a lot better place if it wasn’t simply dominated by one crew.”
The closest Grosjean got here to successful races was in 2012 and 2013 whereas driving for Lotus. In these two seasons, he completed on the rostrum 9 occasions and went near victory on a number of events, wanting sturdy within the latter marketing campaign particularly.
After 2013, he solely managed yet one more podium as monetary difficulties despatched the crew right into a downward spiral, and he says that’s the one large remorse of his profession.
“Possibly the one remorse I’ve is that Lotus went bankrupt in 2014 after a superb 2013 the place we had been on the correct path, going someplace nicely,” he mentioned.
“I didn’t get a proposal from a prime crew on the time, Kimi [Raikkonen] went to Ferrari and I stayed at Lotus and we simply went downhill. It’s then very exhausting to recuperate once you’ve been at a crew near the again of the sector.
“I do know I may have received some races. There’s not remorse in not successful one as a result of I do know each time I had the possibility I did all the pieces I may. As I say, the one remorse is that after 2013 I didn’t get the possibility to have a automotive that was that aggressive.”
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