Race engineer Grosjean: "It was silent for 30 seconds, it was a horrible feeling"

Anyone who has seen it happen will agree: Romain Grosjean's crash last year was a terrible moment that left everyone silent for a moment. In a documentary, new footage shows how close it was, and Grosjean and others involved tell of that moment.

In Canal+'s documentary 'Retour de flammes', the moment of the crash is reconstructed and Grosjean talks about the accident.

30 seconds radio silence

Grosjean's racing engineer at the time, Ayao Komatsu, also recounts the frightening moments he experienced when he saw the accident happen. "At first I didn't think it was Romain, but then I saw on the GPS monitor that he was no longer on the track," he said.

"On the first lap of the race, everything is focused on telemetry, and suddenly there is no data. He is driving at 200km/h and then suddenly everything stops. I immediately asked on the radio if everything was OK, and the worst thing you can get back is silence," Komatsu says.

He continues: "It stayed silent for about 30 seconds. It was just a terrible feeling until someone on another channel saw that he was out of the car. But up until that point, it was just a terrible, terrible day."