By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
For the second straight time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway grand prix circuit, Romain Grosjean came home second.
Placing runner-up back in May at the 2.439-mile track, Grosjean repeated the performance in Saturday’s NTT IndyCar Series Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix, coming up just 1.11 seconds behind race winner Will Power.
“On the last stint, I felt we were stronger than Will was,” Grosjean said. “The last two stints, we came back on the game. We were a touch faster than him at the end. I knew it was going to be tight and tough.”
With zero seconds of push-to-pass against Power at the end, the Frenchman had a tough fight on hand if he wanted to score win No. 1.
“It didn’t give us any favors to try and go for the win,” he said. “I had to go through some back-markers early on. Some races are very easy to keep it, some races like today, you’re out of it five laps to the end.”
Grosjean celebrating with his family after finishing P2 in #IndyCar 🥺 Will Power took the win pic.twitter.com/mcQTrOXJkm
— WTF1 (@wtf1official) August 14, 2021
Earning his second career podium, Grosjean also scores his third top-five finish in now nine IndyCar starts in 2021.
“The beauty of it is that you don’t have to be on pole position to [win],” he said. “You know you have a chance in the race. It’s cool to come here where everyone has a chance to win.”
Next up for the ex-Formula 1 driver is his first oval race next time out at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
“I’m a rookie, a proper rookie,” he said. “I just want to gradually go for it, improve myself and learn about it. It’s a weird one. On the ovals, the car does the work and you control the speed. Quite a bit of a strange feeling.”
A runner-up for @RGrosjean at @IMS ahead of next week's oval debut.@KevinLee23: "Where do you stand on (running the Indy 500?)"
Grosjean: "If I sign a contract that says I can finish first in that one, I'd do it right now." pic.twitter.com/otA3boSEZF
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 14, 2021