Haas rules out sponsoring Grosjean after crash: 'He should just stay at home'

Romain Grosjean will compete in the IndyCar championship in 2021 and was initially to be supported by Haas. However, owner Gené Haas was so shocked by the crash in Bahrain that he will not sponsor Grosjean in the American championship.

No support from Haas

Grosjean escaped with a fright at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix after an extreme crash. He had shot through a crash barrier and was on fire, but the Frenchman got out.

''He had asked if we would be willing to sponsor him in IndyCar, and I think at the beginning I was pretty open to it. But then when he crashed in Bahrain, I was just so happy he didn’t kill himself. For someone who has just absolutely destroyed the car, I couldn’t be happier that he survived it. he has a wife and three kids, and I just told him I couldn’t see giving him money to go out and kill himself," Haas told Racer.com.

Grosjean makes a bad choice

"I just felt like he needs to stay home and take care of his family. He escaped the big one there. If you really understood what happened there… if that car had been a few degrees one way or the other, he wouldn’t have been able to get out through that hoop, and he would have died. So, extremely lucky. And the team was extremely lucky. I just could not fathom having to face a widow or his kids. I just couldn’t do that. So I said ‘Nah, stay home, I can’t help you there anymore," said the owner of Haas.

Despite the lack of support from Haas, Grosjean will still be in action in the IndyCar championship in 2021, for Dale Coyne Racing. ''You know, Grosjean’s a heck of a driver. He has some really good days when I think he’s probably as good as any driver out there. He loves driving, and that’s his choice. I just don’t want to be part of the bad choice. I feel as lucky as he is to escape being killed. That was the luckiest day in the whole Haas F1 saga, that Grosjean managed to survive that, and relatively unscathed," the American concluded.