-[jet engines roaring] -[crowd cheering]
[Grosjean] In Formula One, every race, every season,
you need to be at the top of your game.
But when you go through a tough patch, you can have doubt.
Spa 2012 was a big moment in my career.
[Croft] And we're racing in Belgium. It's a good start for Hamilton.
[Brundle] Grosjean cutting across Lewis.
[Croft] Oh! There's contact!
-Grosjean over the top of Alonso. -[tires squeal]
It has a massive impact!
Alonso's out, Hamilton's out, Kobayashi's out.
Real drama at the start of the race.
And, uh, I'm afraid I've got to say I think that's Grosjean's fault.
[Grosjean] After that race, I went to see a psychologist
to get myself in a better place.
If you use a trainer to get your body in shape,
why wouldn't you use a psychologist to train your head?
[pneumatic tools whirring]
[Sims] Let's go up and down here, do a few of our running drills.
Just loosen up the hips. That's good.
[Grosjean] My name is Romain Grosjean. I'm 32 years old,
and I'm racing in Formula One for Haas F1 team.
I was born a competitor.
[Sims] Go for it.
[Grosjean] Everything I do, I always try to be the best.
[Sims] Quicker.
[Grosjean] Whether it's playing tennis or running or cooking
or being in a racing car.
But it's been a rough start of the season.
[Croft] Right, on board then, with Grosjean.
[Brundle] He's weaving around, trying to get temperature into the tires.
[smashing, metal scraping]
[crew groans]
[Croft] Grosjean, who was up into a brilliant position
has now crashed behind the safety car.
I'm fucking speechless.
[Croft] That looks like Romain Grosjean, just going right across the track.
[tires screeching]
-[Gannon] Are you okay, man? -[Grosjean] Yeah, I'm okay.
I can't fucking believe it.
[Grosjean] All right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah.
[Croft] What has happened to the Haas driver?
[panting]
Fifteen. One more to go.
[Grosjean] We are among the best in the world
because we made it to Formula One.
There are only 20 seats in the world in our sport.
A lot of people want to come through and get your seat.
You need to keep performing or you can be out of the job.
[Sims] Two to go.
[Croft] Welcome to the south of France, to the French Grand Prix.
Yes, we are back in France after an absence of ten years,
and it's round eight of the Formula One championship
in 2018.
[announcer in French] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. We're happy to welcome you...
[cheering]
[Grosjean] I'm Swiss and French.
I'm a Swissman because I hate being late.
I'm always on time. And I love chocolate.
So, I guess there is no more cliché than that for Switzerland.
But, my mother was French and I was raised under a French flag.
So, you know, it's like a dual personality.
-[in French] Romain, come this way! -Thank you!
[Croft] A home driver hoping to make a point here this weekend
is Romain Grosjean.
Still no points so far this season.
[Grosjean] I think it's gonna give an extra boost,
hearing "La Marseillaise," seeing all those French flags in the grandstand.
I'm really hoping that that's a turnaround in the season
and things are going perfectly all weekend long.
[tools whirring]
When can you start the work, you think?
[inaudible]
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
[Steiner] Haas F-1 is the newest team. We're in our third season now.
The biggest goal is to finish better than last year.
We'll see if we can, uh, get four.
To describe Romain as a driver is... actually, I wouldn't say difficult,
but he's very fast.
On a good day, Romain, I think he's one of the best out there.
But he makes mistakes.
If the driver keeps crashing,
the biggest thing is he loses, sometimes, his confidence.
[Grosjean] Okey-dokey.
-Sweet, thank you, boys. -Okay.
[Steiner] I think the task for Romain for the rest of the season
is to be consistent.
He's delighted to be racing here in France at Circuit Paul Ricard,
his first time racing in a French Grand Prix.
I'm gonna jump down and get some questions from the guys.
[in French] Good afternoon, Romain.
Who are you going to be driving for next year?
-[crowd laughing] -[MC] Oh!
For now, I do not know. We will focus on the next races. It’s the first time...
[Buxton in English] Formula One isn't like other sports.
Contracts are negotiated, they are signed...
who knows when.
And that's why you've always got to be performing as well as you can.
You're very happy with Haas,
-but obviously, time will tell. -Correct.
[Buxton] Right, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together.
Thank Romain Grosjean for his time. Wish him well.
[cheering and applause]
[in French] Good luck, my friend. Good luck.
[Grosjean] Just coming straight on the racing line.
[man] Yeah.
[Buxton] Romain is out of contract at the end of this season.
Whether he remains in Formula One is massively open for debate.
[Grosjean] In sixth, it's quite a high speed. It's like fourth or fifth.
[man] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[Buxton] He's so experienced. On his day, he is so good.
But he's falling apart this year.
You're only as good as your last race,
and right now, Romain's last races are not that much to write home about.
-[applause] -[woman] Bonne chance!
-[Gannon] They like you. -[Grosjean] They do.
[Gannon] We like you too.
[Croft] We're getting towards the start, then, of qualifying.
But for the drivers, Martin, it's kind of their first real competitive chance
to get a feel for this track because...
[engine roaring]
[Buxton] Saturday afternoon sees qualifying
to determine the starting order for Sunday's Grand Prix.
His total is... [indistinct]
[Buxton] The further back you qualify,
the harder your race is going to be on Sunday,
and the harder job you're going to get scoring points.
[Haas] Well, I think every driver feels an incredible amount of pressure.
I know Romain is feeling the pressure.
I know that Kevin is an adversary to him.
So, he-- he feels that.
[Magnussen] Your teammate is, in many ways, your worst enemy.
I get on well with Romain
and I think we have a healthy relationship as teammates.
But, you know, we are here to do our own thing and focus on ourselves
and do the best for ourselves.
I don't ever think about, you know, crashing the car.
I'm willing to do anything to get those results.
[Steiner] Good guys never win.
In Formula One, if you're just a good guy and let your teammate pass by,
that doesn't work. You will never be successful.
It's part of the game. At this level, uh, you need to fight hard.
Okay.
Once more, because we will perform a start.
[Magnussen] Okay.
[engine revs]
[Haas] It kind of shows you the personalities of Formula One guys.
They don't wanna anybody to pass them.
[Croft] And a green light, and so the cars can come out onto the track.
And, boy, do these boys need to practice.
[Haas] They're so damn competitive,
even if they're walking out the door, they'll race to the door.
That's just their nature.
They won't let anybody beat them at anything.
-[Magnussen] Radio's good, turn one. -[Salvi] Okay.
Okay, push, now. Good.
[Grosjean] Okay, done. We're green or red?
[man] We're green.
[Gannon] Okay, it's gone. Let's go now.
[Grosjean] Okay, yeah.
[Croft] Onboard with Romain Grosjean. Looking really fast.
Pushing that Haas to the limit.
[Gannon] Okay, good lap. He's 1.6 behind.
He's on push. We need a very big back-off lap.
[Croft] Romain Grosjean next across the line.
-[Gannon] What a good lap. -[applause]
[Steiner] Romain was very fast. He couldn't do anything better.
But he needs to consistently get the best out of the car.
[Gannon] Romain, driver default Charlie.
Okay, Hamilton, three, puts you in a half behind on a push,
and we are gonna go for a timed lap.
We're going for it.
[engine revving]
[tires squeal]
-[man] No! -[Gannon] Shit, he crashed.
[man groans]
Fuck me.
[Croft] The Haas is out of qualifying, but it has red flagged the session.
Fuck!
[Gannon] Are you okay? Are you okay?
-[Grosjean] Yeah. I can't engage reverse. -[engine whirring]
Okay, understood.
[Grosjean] It doesn't want to go reverse.
-[Gannon] Okay. -I can't reverse.
[Gannon] All right, just take your time. Take your time.
[Croft] Romain Grosjean in his home race
in Q3, after all the smiles to get this far,
now comes the agony and the despair for the Haas team.
He's overcooked it.
[Steiner] I fucking-- I mean, I don't know how long I can live like this.
At some stage, I need to do something, you know?
I cannot keep on doing... just finding excuses for him.
He'll come back here then?
[Gannon] Yeah. Yeah, when he comes back here...
-[man] Chill out for two minutes. Okay. -...and then go straight down, yeah.
-Let's not be negative. -[man] Okay.
[Grosjean] Well, after a crash, you're never very proud.
Especially when, you know, you've got a good car
and a good chance for a good Grand Prix.
And of course, you're... you're frustrated, you're disappointed,
you can be sad, you can be angry.
Feel good? Want to go to your room?
[Grosjean] Yeah.
Most of the time, you keep your helmet on and your visor down
to protect yourself and create a bit of a gap with the outside world.
You only had a tiny bit of throttle in the rear one, so...
[Keedle] How are you?
[Grosjean] I'm too tired. I can't sleep. All this bad luck is draining me.
[man] I thought it might, uh--
I always fight bad news, bad news, bad news.
[Keedle] It's just too much.
[Grosjean] And you never rest. You always have a negative feeling of what's next.
[Keedle] Of course. Of course. What's gonna happen next?
[Grosjean] And here we are again, negative, boom!
Fuck's sake.
I didn't do a foot wrong all fucking weekend.
[Grosjean] Sorry...
[Steiner] There's no need.
-There was no need. -I know.
Fucking hell, Romain, we cannot--
[Grosjean] I know there's no need...
[Komatsu] Right. Okay. Let's not dwell on it. Come on, yeah?
-We still got good car, yeah? -Yeah, we do.
We'll score points tomorrow, yeah? Come on. Okay? Positive.
[Steiner] It was all very good until it went all very wrong.
In my opinion, it's not even a mistake. He tries too hard.
That is my opinion about him.
He wants to be faster, obviously,
and then gets into situations where the car cannot be as fast
because it isn't there. You need to know how far you can go,
and I think he just tried to go to the edge and sometimes,
a few times too often, goes over the edge.
[Steiner] Fuck me.
[Croft] With Romain Grosjean out of qualifying,
all the Haas team's hopes now rest with Kevin Magnussen.
[Salvi] We have one time lap, one time lap.
Come on, let's put the lap together.
[engine revs]
[Croft] And that's ninth place for Kevin Magnussen.
A disappointing result all around for Haas.
The car showed a lot of pace on this track.
[Buxton] Both you and Kevin look really disappointed at the end of today,
but you have a great car underneath you. Confident it'll be smiles tomorrow?
Hopefully, yeah. We'll, try to be-- to get some luck for once.
[Buxton] Well done. Thank you.
-[Komatsu] It's okay to start? -[man] Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Obviously, it was a very disappointing qualifying for the potential we got.
Um... can we start with you, please, Romain?
I don't have any explanation for losing the rear that way.
[Komatsu] Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
-[Grosjean] It just went... -Okay, understood. Right.
[Grosjean] In Formula One, you do feel lonely sometimes,
because there aren't many people that can understand
what you're going through.
If you do a mistake on the track, a lot of people are talking about it.
You can be a hero and you can be a zero within five seconds.
[Steiner] I think his confidence is seriously taking lots of hits now.
Like he gave up the "why," he don't care anymore about it.
It's my opinion about this.
Because you have nothing to lose.
You know how you're strongest when you have nothing to lose?
-No? -Yeah.
We're in 19, the whole sport is what is on the line, you know?
Yeah.
[Steiner] Yeah? And you try to place him? [chuckles]
[woman] We are trying to place him. Exactly.
All right. Can I just have a few-- few minutes?
I want to explain a little bit of things.
I think it was time again to do a dinner, just to show our appreciation
for what you guys are doing for the team, you know?
We're having very promising results, but have very little points.
And I think we are all aware of it.
The only one having points, actually, is him, you know?
Romain is not here.
Maybe he didn't want to come because he had no points, maybe.
[laughter]
Or maybe I didn't invite him because he doesn't deserve any food.
[laughter]
I will tell him tomorrow, by the way, you know, that I said this, so,
you don't have to run to him and tell him, you know?
I'm brave enough to say it myself.
But, no, I think we always are competitive.
Actually sometimes, me personally,
I cannot wait to go to next race because having a car like this,
you don't have always in your career, you know?
So we just need to get a little bit lucky. Uh... we don't need a lot of luck.
We just need to get rid of the unluckiness and we will be fine.
So, I just want to say, guys, we still believe in everybody.
You know, we had issues, but I think we still keep fighting hard.
Enjoy the evening and, uh, enjoy the meal,
and thank you very much from our side. Thank you, guys.
[applause]
["La Marseillaise" playing]
[cheering]
[jet engines roaring]
[Steiner] The goal for this race is to make as many points as possible.
And then what I expect is to make points
and bring results with a car like ours, uh, every weekend.
[Gannon] Romain, loud and clear and okay to push
and remember... fifth gear.
[Croft] We should be able to see the lights.
And we're getting ready for the lights to go on
and the return of Grand Prix racing
to its birthplace of France.
It's lights out and away we go!
The top two get away very well.
Sebastian Vettel is now in hot pursuit as they head down towards turn one.
[tires squealing]
-[man] No! -[crew groans]
[man] Oh, fucking hell!
[Grosjean] I got bad, bad hit by behind.
[Gannon] No problem. As far as we can tell, everything's okay on the car.
[cheering and applause]
[man] Nice!
[Gannon] Currently P-8.
[Croft] And that is Charles Leclerc under pressure from Romain Grosjean.
Grosjean tries to go around the outside.
-[bumping] -[tires squealing]
[Grosjean] Man, he completely forced me off the track again.
We saw it. No problem, keep going.
[Croft] Vettel behind.
Vettel goes for a move on Grosjean.
That looked very, very easy.
Nico Hülkenberg has been getting after that Haas.
[Grosjean] Again? Fuck's sake!
[Croft] Here goes Bottas.
He's now going wheel to wheel with Grosjean.
Through the Beausset and squeezes the Haas off the track there.
-[Steiner] Fuck! -[Komatsu] Fuck!
[Grosjean] Hey, I was just got pushed off the track by Bottas again.
[Komatsu] Okay. We saw that. We saw that.
[Steiner] No. Just tell him.
Just focus on driving, not fucking whinge. Fucking hell.
[Croft] But here comes Kevin Magnussen on Brendon Hartley into the chicane.
[crew yells]
[Croft] Onboard with Kevin Magnussen, running in tenth place.
The battle with Stoffel Vandoorne.
[Salvi] Still three laps of spot one available.
[Croft] Kevin Magnussen gets past Stoffel Vandoorne
and up into ninth place now for the Haas.
[Salvi] Okay, you're catching up on Sainz and pulling away from Leclerc.
This is a good job. Come on, boy.
[Croft] There's a loss of power for Carlos Sainz,
and you can now see Kevin Magnussen
and Valterri Bottas closing in on the Spaniard.
And this could be bonus position finishes.
[Komatsu] Come on, Kev. Come on, come on, come on.
[Salvi] You have the DRS.
P-6, P-6.
[cheering]
[Salvi] Excellent job, man.
[man] Pressure's good. Car looks good.
[Salvi] Three laps to go.
[Croft] But can Valterri Bottas get past Kevin Magnussen here?
[Salvi] P-6, come on, boy.
[Steiner] Hang on, Kevin!
[Croft] Kevin Magnussen is gonna hold him off.
Magnussen finishes sixth.
[Salvi] Checkered flag.
[Salvi] Today it was a very solid performance, Kevin.
[laughing]
[Magnussen] Amazing, guys.
Well done. Well done. Some more points.
Let's keep it going. We're doing well. We're doing well.
We got a heck of a little driver there.
Yeah, it's too bad Grosjean couldn't make up one spot.
[Croft] And that's Roman Grosjean crossing the line in eleventh position,
just one place outside the points.
[Gannon] Checkered flag. Checkered flag.
You drove well.
Sorry we didn't quite get on the points. Kevin got, uh, P-6.
[Grosjean] Uh, mate, the rules are a joke.
I got pushed twice off the track.
Yeah, result was disappointing.
Um, it's not-- I was not expecting to come 11th.
-Fantastic. -Fantastic.
[Grosjean] It's always difficult to see your teammate doing well and you not.
-It's a good time. -Yeah.
Okay.
[Steiner] Good job, man. I kept on seeing the fighter.
-Yeah. -Okay, I was shitting myself.
[Steiner] In any sport at this level, you just need to be determined.
But I think life generally is like this.
If you always let other people get on, you stay behind.
[speaking French]
[Steiner] I think at this stage of the season, looking at drivers, uh...
we're looking around.
[reporter in French] Thank you.
I think Romain knows what to do, that he keeps his seat.
He's well aware of it,
that we cannot have any more accidents and damages,
but we will talk about it and see what is best for the team to go forward.
[thunder rumbles]
[Grosjean] The present form from the beginning of the season
is not where I should be
and it's not what I can do...
because I know that I can come back to the level I want to be.
And therefore, I will keep my seat.
[Croft] Romain Grosjean on his way to getting his first points
since Japan last year.
[Grosjean] Whoo hoo hoo!
[Croft] Grosjean comes home fourth.
[cheering]
It's amazing. I hope he found his mojo back.
[Croft] Stand by for action. It is the U.S. Grand Prix.
We never had a good result in a home Grand Prix.
I hope this is the year.
[Croft] It's a chaotic opening lap of the race.
Contact with Romain Grosjean.