Romain Grosjean apologises for ‘misunderstanding’ McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown after Oscar Piastri claim
Romain Grosjean has apologised to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown for misinterpreting his comments about Oscar Piastri.
Ex-Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean has issued an apology for “misunderstanding” McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown’s comments about Oscar Piastri at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The former Lotus and Haas F1 driver was in attendance in Madrid as a pundit for French TV station Canal+, with the Frenchman also appearing on F1’s in-house channel F1TV.
Grosjean was commenting on qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix when he reacted to Brown’s remarks about Lando Norris and Piastri’s performance.
Norris claimed pole position for the first-ever F1 race at the Madring, while Piastri took seventh, having lapped four tenths slower than his McLaren team-mate.
When asked the F1TV pundits what Piastri was missing compared to Norris in qualifying, Brown replied: “I think you’ve got Lando on his A-plus game, so I don’t think there was anything left lap-time-wise there and so he found that.
“Oscar has been right there with him all weekend and just didn’t get that same extra [performance] that lap. We’ll continue to look at it. He’ll look at the data and probably do what we all did and go: ‘Wow, what a lap!”
During his commentary of the race with Canal+, Grosjean said Brown had taken a chainsaw to Piastri’s performance during the interview with F1TV.
Grosjean also claimed Brown had said Norris is a world champion and a better driver than Piastri.
In a post on social media on Sunday evening, Grosjean apologised after admitting he had misinterpreted Brown’s comments.
"Today, I made a comment on Canal+ regarding Zak Brown's comments about Oscar Piastri during an interview yesterday on F1TV, which I was part of," Grosjean wrote.
"I completely misunderstood his words and want to apologise for that. I know how important it is to Zak and the entire McLaren team to respect their drivers and treat them fairly and equally.
"McLaren had the fastest car today and were unlucky with the VSC.
"I'm sure both Lando and Oscar will have another chance to fight for the win in Baku."
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