“They made me cry at the end of the day," claims Grosjean as he reflects on his drive with Haas at Mugello

Former Formula One driver Romain Grosjean made a long-awaited return to the cockpit of an F1 car on Friday as part of a special test session with his former team Haas at the Mugello Circuit in Italy.

Romain Grosjean returned to the cockpit of one of his Formula 1 cars for the first time since the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix as the Frenchman participated in a TPC (Testing of Previous Car) test at the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello on Friday 26 September.

The 39-year-old spent a total of five seasons competing for Haas from 2016 to 2020 – his time in Formula 1 ending abruptly following a horrific opening lap accident in his VF-20 at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday 29 November 2020. Grosjean survived both the barrier impact – measured at 67G, as well as the fire that followed, extracting himself from the wreckage with his injuries limited to burns to the back of his hands.

Grosjean strapped into the cockpit of the VF-23 at Mugello – a track where he holds a 12th place finish from Formula 1’s sole visit to the the Tuscan Grand Prix which was held in 2020 during the sport’s reduced COVID-impacted season.

Last Friday’s track activities were overseen by members of Grosjean’s original Haas crew – many of whom now work on the TPC and heritage programs being run by the American squad. Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu, who was Grosjean’s race engineer when they previously worked together at Lotus F1 Team, served as race engineer at Mugello.

Dominic Haines was also on-site to oversee proceedings – the Englishman was formerly Grosjean’s race engineer from 2019-2020 and he currently serves as Heritage Chief Engineer. Grosjean’s long-serving No.1 Race Mechanic, Ian Staniforth, was also present at Mugello in his current capacity as Race Team Support Chief Mechanic – with several additional team members on the operational and garage side also in attendance having worked with Grosjean throughout his 98 race starts with Haas.

Commenting on his emotional day with Haas at Mugello, Grosjean said: “It was a wet day, but as we say, it was a rainy wedding, a rainy happy wedding. So it was a rainy day, happy day, fantastic.

“Just felt a bit rusty at first, and then everything came back. I even got to do a standing start, and guess what, my last standing start was Bahrain 2020. So this time it turned out way better.

“Very grateful, very unique opportunity getting to see some of the people that were in Australia 2016 and get to drive the new generation of cars. It was fantastic and, again, I'm very, very grateful. There's just no other words.”

Grosjean continued: “They made me cry at the end of the day!I kept my visor down, but for my last in-lap, everyone from Ferrari, Red Bull, Pirelli and of course Haas F1 team was here, clapping and giving me like an ovation. That's something I was expecting in Abu Dhabi 2020 [for his planned F1 farewell], but I think it was even better today.”