Romain Grosjean us supporting efforts to allow drivers greater slack regarding penalties for on-track incidents.
In Bahrain, the chairman of the stewards, Garry Connelly, met with the drivers to gain a consensus on what a ‘let them race’ policy should entail.
Though the conclusions of that discussion will come in a few races, Grosjean explained how he would approach the matter.
“I don’t think we want to go crazy, but I think if it’s not intentional and you go for an overtaking manoeuvre and you lock up and you touch, then it’s not the end of the world,” the Haas driver told Autosport.
“If you do a ‘Grosjean at Spa 2012’ or a ‘Hulkenberg at Spa last year’ – OK, it’s not intentional, but it’s got big consequences so it’s got to be penalised. Same as [Sergio] Perez in Singapore [2018].
“But on lap one if you brake a bit late, or what I had in Austin with Charles Leclerc, I felt sorry I spun him, but his race was already dead because he had damage on the front wing and the floor, so I think the consequences were not that bad.”
Something Grosjean was keen to avoid though, was seeing F1 devolve into the carbon crunching we have seen in Formula E this season.
“I think Formula E has gone a bit too far,” he claimed. “But [in F1] if you touch someone your car is broken anyway.
“The fact is we don’t want to go into a braking zone trying to overtake someone and thinking ‘oh if I lock up and I touch him, that’s going to be a penalty’. We want racing,” the Frenchman declared.
“Sh*t’s going to happen over 21 races, but it always balances itself, I think, in the end. It’s good that we can go racing, and we can fight.
“Obviously there are a few things that we don’t want to see, and moving under braking is a big one because to me that’s the biggest danger nowadays.
“If that’s really something we’re strict on, for the rest, we should be allowed to race and have fun.”
