Terrifying details of Grosjean's incredible escape

F1 News

5 December 2020 at 16:58
  • Louis Shaw
  • Editor

Romain Grosjean crawled through the eye of the needle last weekend to escpae the fire in his Haas. How small the margins for his escape from the wreckage really were, more and more people realize a week later.

Grosjean tells Sky Sports that he really looked death in the eye. It even came so close that he gave 'Death' a name. From now on, Grosjean's house will be known as 'Benoit'.

Grosjean had extremely little space

This is a light-hearted and understandable way to process the actual situation. Now that Grosjean can speak extensively to the press, it becomes clear what exactly happened in that sea of flames. Under normal circumstances, a driver can get out within seven seconds, Grosjean took 28 seconds.

This is mainly due to the narrow opening between the edge of the halo and the curved barrier through which Grosjean had to climb. Of course he was out of sight and so he bumped his head against that barrier the first couple of times he tried to get out of the cockpit.

At first he saw no other option but to wait, but in panic he finally found the exit when it really got too hot. In the picture below you can see how tight that exit really was.