Categories: Look backRace and classic pictures

Grosjean goes flying at Spa in 2012

40

A bad start to the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps saw Romain Grosjean's Lotus flying through the air at La Source. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) was lucky not to be injured as his Ferrari also crashed out into retirement, while Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) and Sergio Perez (Sauber) were similarly both out on the spot as a result of the first corner mêlée.

Grosjean was blamed for causing the collision and given a one-race ban, which left the team scrambling to find a replacement driver. They finally settled on their test and development driver (and former Marussia racer) Jérôme d'Ambrosio as his stand-in for the next race in Monza: d'Ambrosio finished in 13th place in the race in his only outing with the team, and his last appearance in a Formula One Grand Prix to date.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.