Grosjean happy to 'get back on the horse'

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It has not been the best of race weekends for Haas driver Romain Grosjean recently, after costly errors in Baku and Barcelona.

The most recent race saw him spin out of the Spanish Grand Prix in turn 3. He also took out Renault's Nico Hulkenberg and Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly in the massive first lap accident.

Grosjean was subsequently handed a three-place grid penalty for the next race in Monaco for causing the accident. He was also given two penalty points on his superlicence.

Haas boss Guenther Steiner later criticised the stewards decision as "a kick in the face", and said the driver had been trying his best to get out of the way.

In the face of all the furore, Grosjean was pleased to have an early opportunity to get back behind the wheel of the VF-18 this week for a day of in-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

"I think it was important to get back on the horse after not being able to complete the Grand Prix on Sunday," he said. "So feelings were good."

Palmer: 'Barcelona mishap the worst for Grosjean'

Grosjean completed a total of 129 laps on Tuesday. He set his fastest lap of 1:18.449s in the morning on pink hypersoft tyres to lead the timings at lunchtime. He went on to end the day fourth fastest.

"It’s been a very good day and a very productive day for the team," he said. "We’ve done a lot of mileage and we haven’t had any issues with the car.

"We did some very good testing with the car. We’ve learned a lot about the different tyres and setup work, which you don’t get to do on a race weekend. The feeling was super good.

"Hopefully, they stay there for Monaco and the rest of the season. I’m very happy with the job that everyone’s done on the day."

Kevin Magnussen took over the car for the second and final day of testing at Barcelona on Wednesday.

The Dane has also been a regular visitor to the race stewards in recent races. However in Barcelona, he escaped with just a reprimand for 'potentially dangerous manoeuvre' in Friday practice following an incident with Sauber's Charles Leclerc in FP1.

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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.