In April 2021, as Grosjean embarked upon his Ind圜ar debut in St Petersburg, there was still some interest in Formula E and a test had been mooted at Calafat in Spain for Grosjean to attend.īut in the end “he only ever did that sim day with us in Banbury, he was never in the car”, recalls Gill. I don’t think season seven was going to see him drive much, just doing some test sim and development work for us with potentially driving in season eight if things went OK.” “I think season seven, we were looking at him as a sim, test and development driver, and like a brand ambassador, and for season eight potentially as a race driver. With Lynn on a single-year deal and Sims on a double there remained the possibility for change for the 2022 season and it was this campaign that could have offered Grosjean the possibility to go electric.īy the new year of 2021 though he was leaning towards his soon-to-be-inked deal with Dale Coyne Racing for a part-season in Ind圜ar.Īlthough the relationship was fleeting, Gill says that he had “in the back of my mind a potential scenario where he could be with us in the future”. The day of that infamous shunt happened to be one of the days of the pre-season Valencia test ahead of the 2021 season where Mahindra would field Alex Lynn and Alexander Sims, the former having already replaced a benched-and-Porsche-bound Pascal Wehrlein at Berlin a few months before, while Sims was signed from BMW i Andretti. “We talked about a track test but then his accident happened at Bahrain and then he started talking to Ind圜ar.” “He eventually came to us, did some sim work and seemed quite comfortable with everything,” Gill added. ”įor Gill, his memory is that “we had a chat and picked up a conversation, it was very informal at that point and actually it really continued that way”. “But the timing was difficult and obviously the accident impacted a bit because Formula E starts in the regular off-season.
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