Romain Grosjean can consider himself lucky to have survived a massive and fiery crash at the start of Sunday's Bahrain GP.
The Haas driver was jockeying for position along with his rivals in the lower part of the field when he veered right on the exit of Sakhir's Turn 3 and clipped the left front of Daniil Kvyat's AlphaTauri.
The impact with the barrier split the Haas' chassis from its rear-end while a massive blaze erupted.
Miraculously, Grosjean managed to extract himself from the remains of the destroyed Haas and jump out of harm's way. The medical team was swiftly on site to tend to the Frenchman who appeared slightly injured but relatively unscathed.
A replay showed exactly how lucky Grosjean had been, with footage of the Haas violently plowing through the barrier.
Haas has confirmed Grosjean is OK: "Romain has some minor burns on his hands and ankles but otherwise he is OK. He is with the doctors just now.”
A 45-minute delay - at the very least - until a probable restart of the race was expected as circuit workers repaired the damaged barriers.
Grosjean surviving the fireball is a miracle in itself but the 34-year-old will also have the Haas' halo cockpit safety device to thank for protecting him as the broken off survival pierced and parted the barriers.
STEINER: "Romain is doing okay, I don't want to make a medical comment but he had light burns on his hands and ankles. Obviously he's shaken... I want to thank the rescue crews who are very quick. The marshals and FIA people they did a great job, it was scary"#BahrainGP 🇧🇭 pic.twitter.com/lWbZd17ynw
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 29, 2020
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