Grosjean undergoes further surgery on injured hand

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Romain Grosjean has undergone more surgery on his left hand, which was injured in a spectacular accident at the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix last month.

As well as minor burns to both hands, a 53G impact with the barrier meant that Grosjean also suffered ligament damage as he battled to escape the inferno that engulfed his Haas after he spun off at the start of the race.

Grosjean was well enough to attend the following week's race at Sakhir as a spectator, but then decided to headed home to Switzerland to undergo further treatment on his injuries before the season finale.

On Tuesday evening he announced on social media that the next step was a surgical procedure on the ligaments of the thumb of his left hand.

Read also: Grosjean misses opportunity to wear children's helmet design

He also needed treatment to his right hand for a separate injury picked up earlier in 2020, predicting that he "should be a new man tomorrow.”

Afterwards, he said that everything had gone well and posted a picture of himself sitting in his hospital bed.

On Wednesday he posted a follow-up saying that he'd had “a good sleep and not too much pain” but that it was “bit of a handful writing messages”.

Grosjean also tweeted a message of support to Williams founder Sir Frank Williams whois also in hospital this week, commenting: “You are such an inspiration for every racer in the world."

And on Wednesday morning he added his congratulations to Yuki Tsunoda, who has just been confirmed at AlphaTauri for 2021: "Yes Yuki so happy for you and so well deserved!!!!"

Grosjean himself is without a seat for next season, meaning that his accident in Bahrain will almost certainly be his last Grand Prix outing.

He had hoped to take part in the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi but was told by doctors that doing so could pose a serious risk to his recovery and long-term health.

He later said that deciding to sit out the last race had been “one of the hardest decisions of my life, but it’s obviously one of the wisest”. His place was taken by Pietro Fittipaldi.

Grosjean made his F1 debut with Renault in the European Grand Prix at Valencia in 2009, and went on to take part in 179 Grand Prix races with Lotus and Haas.

Before the accident, the 34-year-old had been eyeing up a move to the US open wheel IndyCar Series, but he's since admitted that surviving the crash had made him re-evaluate when he wanted to do next.

Grosjean has said that once he is fully recovered, he wants one final run in an F1 car to help exorcise the trauma of his Bahrain accident. Mercedes has indicated that it may be willing to give him an outing in a private test in one of their championship-winning cars.

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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.