Grosjean Charges to Podium Finish at Laguna Seca
Laguna Seca, CA (September 19, 2021) –Romain Grosjean charged through the field aboard his #51 Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Nurtec ODT Honda on Sunday moving up 10 spots to claim his third NTT INDYCAR SERIES podium with a third-place finish, making 27 passes along the way, 15 of which were for position.
Grosjean, who started 13th, immediately gained three positions when the green flag fell on the 95-lap race and climbed to ninth on the second lap. Not long after a Lap 5 restart, he moved up to eighth and then made his way to first by the time he pitted on Lap 20.
Following his stop, Grosjean fell to 13th, but it wouldn’t be long before he made his way back into the top 10. He then got as high as third before making his second pit stop for another fresh set of primary Firestone tires and fuel on Lap 46.
The Swiss-born Frenchman returned to the track in ninth position and once again started passing cars as he climbed his way back to first on Lap 69. Grosjean made his final trip down pit lane with 22 laps to go.
Exiting pit lane in seventh, he gained a position nearly every lap and took over third place with six laps remaining, just over nine seconds behind the second place of Alex Palou and just over 12 seconds from leader Colton Herta.
Grosjean once again charged through lapped cars cutting the gap to Palou to 1.73 seconds at the checkered and 3.71 seconds to the leader.
“What a race! I’m really happy with third today after where we started. I was trying to make my way through the field, and I pushed really hard. Our Nurtec ODT car was fast, the team once again gave me a really good car. I think you need to be confident in what you can do in the car. I made some good passes. I had a couple of close moments, but it all worked out in the end. The race was fun. Turn one is a good place to overtake, the corkscrew is another good place to do so. Now it’s easy to say, but I wish we would have pitted five laps earlier because the tires were still very good at the end,” shared Grosjean.
With today’s result, Grosjean closed the gap in the Rookie of the Year standings to 20 points with one race to go.
The Dale Coyne Racing with RWR team is now heading to Long Beach for the season finale on September 26, 2021.