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Romain Grosjean is eagerly anticipating his full-time return to IndyCar racing this year having been left without a single-seater drive last year.
The 39-year-old former Formula 1 driver will rejoin Dale Coyne, the team he debuted with in the series five years ago.
“It’s a championship that I love and that I’ve had a lot of fun in,” Grosjean told Off Track. “Dale is a character that I absolutely adore, or love, I don’t know what’s the right word. But I’m just glad to be back there.
“We have a good team. I’m excited to be racing along with Dennis Hauger, I think he’s a very fast young kid, and also make the most of my last few years of singer seaters.”
Grosjean tested an F1 car last year for the first time since the fiery crash at Bahrain in 2020, which brought his grand prix career to an early end. However he says IndyCar’s single-specification cars can outperform their F1 rivals in some corners.
“The biggest difference is that in Formula 1 you focus on not sliding at all and getting on throttle very early to get a really good run out of the corners,” Grosjean explained. “You have 1,000 horsepower pushing you, so that’s where you get the lap time.
“In IndyCar, it’s a bit different. It’s more about the entry speed, the minimum speed and getting on throttle when you can and make it out of corner. I would say driving-wise that’s the difference.
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“My favourite part of IndyCar is how capable it is to do the low-speed corners on a street course with the dampers that we have, the grip that we use.”
“If we take Monaco, the last corner, the hairpin, an IndyCar would be way faster than Formula 1 in there,” he added.
F1’s rules change for 2026 include a lower minimum weight limit which is likely to improve the cars’ cornering performance in slow turns. However Grosjean said he is concerned about some aspects of the new regulations.
“We’ll have to see race one. On paper I’m a bit worried, but I think the teams will figure it out.
“I think that the beauty of it is going to change the order quite a lot and we could see a lot of action in the race. Is it going to be the action that we want to see? That’s the question that we have wait [and see] for the first few races.
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