Formula One driver Romain Grosjean relived Sunday’s horrific Bahrain Grand Prix crash, where his Haas car penetrated a metal barrier and split in two, in a video news conference on Friday. This, in his own words, is how he escaped the fireball.
“For me it wasn’t quite 28 seconds, it felt more like a minute 30. When the car came to a stop I opened my eyes. I undid my seatbelt straight away. The thing I didn’t remember on the next day was what did I do with the steering wheel? Because I don’t have the memory of taking the steering wheel off and they said no, the steering wheel was gone between your legs. The column and everything broke and went down.
“I feel like something is touching my head so I sit back down in the car and my first thought was ‘I’m going to wait, I’m upside down against the wall so I’m going to wait until someone comes and helps me’. I wasn’t in stress and obviously not aware at the time there is fire.
“Then I look right…
