Grosjean replaces d’Ambrosio in GP2

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Former F1 driver Romain Grosjean will drive for DAMS in this weekend’s GP2 race at the Hockenheimring.

According to the official GP2 website Grosjean will take the place of Jerome d’Ambrosio:

With testing strictly controlled in this category, Gravity Sport Management has made this decision in order to analyse the reasons why the d’Ambrosio/DAMS pairing has been unable to fully unlock its potential so far this season.

D’Ambrosio, a member of the Renault Driver Development programme, is currently 15th in the championship with seven points, all of which were scored at Monaco.

DAMS’s GP2 cars carry the same colours as the Renault F1 team, which Grosjean started seven races for at the end of last year.

Grosjean recently made a return to single seater racing in the Auto GP category and is second in that championship having raced in four of the eight rounds.

Read more: Why Grosjean deserves another F1 shot

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Grosjean replaces d’Ambrosio in GP2”

  1. Can someone clear up which race series he is currently active in?
    Has he dumped FIA GT or Auto GP now?

    1. Well he drove in the FIA GT a week or so ago at Paul Ricard… yet to hear anything about his GT future though.

      1. he will still be driving in GT1. Matech announced a driver reshuffle last week to maximise their championship chances, and Grosjean plays a major role in that.

        1. just to add further, at the moment this reads like a one-off drive in GP2, but it will be interesting to see what happens at rounds 7 and 8, which overlap with his GT1 commitments.

  2. Didn’t I see an article on here a few weeks about whether Grosjean deserves another chance in F1? Nice bit of precognition there Keith.

    I think Grosjean deserves another chance. If he can work his way through GP2, then he definately deserves the chance.

  3. Well then, Grosjean appears to be back on the ladder, I think he’ll Glock it and get back into F1. Good, lad is clearly quick and was put into a horrible situation in F1 last year.

    He has to prove himself all over again but he’s doing a damn fine job of that so far. Him an Bianchi look set to finally reclaim a strong bit of the F1 grid for the cheese ea.. France.

    1. I like the reason being said to be analyses of why DAMS/Abrosio is not succesfull. From that it seems Genii takes Grosjeans capability as a given value.

      So do they expect him to prove Ambrosio is not up to the job by storming to success in a few races, or do they expect him to fail and prove that DAMS is doing a bad job?

      If he does everything right, Genii might be preparing another option, in case they do not want to keep Petrov in the F1 seat for next year.
      Or maybe they place him in the Lotus and agree to get Heikki in return for the Renault engines?

      1. Well yes, Ambrosio’s performance should be judged on his team mates, so it’s clearly not just him. I mean he’s won a race. DAMS is clearly not a front runner, so when I say Grosjean should hope to Glock it, come back to GP2 on his good form, an attract a big team for a shot at the title.

        Interesting thoughts on Renault engine supply, not sure Lotus would roll over like that though, one of the prime reasons for their sucsess has been Truli’s experiance with set ups and development. People keep beating on Truli this season but ask Gascoyne or Fernandes what they think an they’ll point out that there keeping both drivers. Truli is a key player in the sucsess of Lotus, Kovalinen has the edge in the races because he’s motivated an full of vim and vigour, suits lotus fine.

        Don’t think Genii will give the second Renault seat to Grosjean after the disapointment that Petrov’s been, why throw the dice on another rookie when F1’s most attractive remaining seat is yours?

        Glock or Sutil is going to get the seat, most likley Sutil as he’ll bring cash, probably quicker too despite Glock being a GP2 champion.

  4. Is this his potential path back to the second seat at Renault?

    1. I think as long as the testing ban is in force, all new F1 drivers are going to have to proove themselves in the new teams Sauber and Torro Rosso, no more Hamiltons, Piquets and Kovalinens.

      Teams with a shot want guaranteed points, something Petrov and Hulkenburg have spectacularly proven hard as hell.

      Grosjean will now probably get a second shot at F1, but he’ll be wiser this time, expect him to stay in GP2 next year for a shot at the title.

  5. Is d’Ambrosio still a Renault test driver then or not?

    Its great for Grosjean but a shame for Jerome – I don’t think he is really F1 material but is clearly better than Ho Pin Tung. Money talks, I guess.

    1. That got me as well. If they want to evaluate, why not put Grosjean in next to Ambrosio?
      Or do they think Grosjean will do just as good a job as Ho Pin Tung, proving that Ambrosio is the right guy, but the team is doing badly?

    2. At first i understood, that Grosjean will be getting the Ambrosio seat.

      But actually it is just a 1 race deal, probably they hope Grosjean will be able to find a setup route they can than work on in the next races to improve the DAMS team for GP2.
      So it’s a little bit like Klein running the friday training for HRT, just going a little further with him actually racing.

  6. Robert McKay
    20th July 2010, 19:28

    I’m quite glad. He’s too good to be languishing in Auto GP. It’s still too early to determine if he can hack it in F1 but he certainly was competitive in GP2 and has unfinished business there.

  7. Indeed kate, and he did outperform Koboyashi in the same team. But the dams team has a good name, but hasn’t really cut it in GP2. They had a good start last year but fell behing. I do hope D’Ambrosio gets a good seat quickly. I remember in pre season testing he did good times in top gp2 cars.. and I really want a Belgian in F1 :)

  8. Well if Grosjean wants to get back into F1 he is now back on track as GP2 is the best place to be.

    However, why the heck has d’Ambrosio been replaced and not Tung? Hasn’t Tung just been granted a licence for F1? Is there a connection? Has he got a bucket of cash or despite d’Ambrosio winning a race and generally being ahead of Tung do Renault think he is in fact the next Schumi? :P

  9. Why d’Ambrosio? He has a Sprint race win in Monaco, and as far as I know, he is doing very well.

  10. sprint races mean nothing, they’re just so slow drivers get a chance

    1. Robert McKay
      20th July 2010, 20:33

      I agree to an extent, there are quite a few drivers out there making a career out of being mediocre in qualifying, settling for 8th in the feature and then winning the reverse grid sprint race by more or less default simply by doing some blocking.

      Hard to take seriously the record of some drivers when they have a lot of sprint race wins but few feature race wins.

  11. Well, another interesting point is that Grosjean raced with DAMS in AutoGp, and based on his performance there, saw him as a candidate to replace d’Ambrosio, as if AutoGp was a test. I could see him at Sauber, or a Renault-powered team.

  12. I’m not sure if Grosjean is deserving another chance. Having a bad situation in Formula 1 generally shows how a driver will respond to the sport. Anyone will be good in a good car – but only a few will be good in a bad one. Grosjean was in a bad car in a bad team, and he didn’t do anything but spin around.

    1. But the current Renault F1 and DAMS management seem to think he’s up to it.

      They gave him the DAMS AutoGP seat and now take him on board for a GP2 “test race” to sort out setup with the car.
      I think Boullier does want to stay in contact and maybe have him in reserve for RenaultF1 as well.

  13. I’m happy about this. I liked Fat Jean and I think he deserves a second shot after being in a crap car and an awful atmosphere at what I think we can now call the “old Renault” team.

    If Liuzzi deserves a second shot, so does Grosjean

    1. If Liuzzi deserves a second shot, so does Grosjean

      Talk about damning with faint praise!

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