Graham Rahal and Romain Grosjean had a coming together during Sunday’s IndyCar race from Barber Motorsports Park, and the two drivers have very different views of how the situation unfolded.
Late in the race Grosjean made a late-braking move into turn 5 and forced his way inside of Rahal in an attempt to make a pass for seventh place.
The cars touched at the apex of the corner, but it was the exit of the corner that made tempers flare when Grosjean let his car run wide and bumped into the side of the RLL Honda for a second time.
Rahal was upset on the radio at the forceful maneuver, and was still worked up after the race over what he felt was driving that was too aggressive for the situation.
“I think it’s clear,” said Rahal talking to NBC after the race. “Just look at the in-car camera and look at the angle of his head. When I can see in the mirror that his head is directed this way, and the track is going this way, it’s pretty self-explanatory.
“I gave him room. I already knew Romain was going to dive bomb me because I’d already been warned that was what he was doing.
“I’m just frustrated because this isn’t the first time. In St. Pete he hit everybody he could hit. We come here, he hit Rossi, he hit Herta, he hit me. At some point, we have to clean up our act.
“As another driver told me, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. It’s kind of been his reputation over his whole career in Europe, and we’re learning his reputation quickly here.
“To me, if race control doesn’t want to do anything, then they’re not going to do anything. But when we go punt him, they better not do anything to me. In the past, I’ve been penalized for a lot less than that.”
Grosjean, for his part, claimed innocence and held the belief that it was simply a hard-fought battle for position. The Frenchman has made a habit of gaining a lot of time in the braking zones since switching to IndyCar just over a year ago, and has had a few notable hard racing incidents as well.
There was no apparent damage suffered in Sunday’s incident, and both drivers were able to continue without issue to the end of the race.
Grosjean eventually got past Rahal for the position a few laps later when the RLL driver was forced to heavily conserve fuel to make it to the end of the race.
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