Grosjean 'very keen' to take up Wolff's special offer

Toto Wolff is sure to see Romain Grosjean's name pop up on his phone in the future, as the Frenchman is "very keen" to take up the Mercedes boss' offer to test one of the Brackley squad's cars.

Grosjean's career in F1 came to an abrupt and premature halt in Bahrain in December, following the Haas driver's horror crash at Sakhir.

While he escaped the dramatic wreck relatively unscathed, Grosjean suffered burns to his hands that deprived him of his swansong outing in Formula 1 at the sport's 2020 season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Haas boss Guenther Steiner said he would have given Grosjean a farewell run onboard one of the team's cars had the US outfit had an older-spec machine at its disposal, which it didn't.

But cue Wolff, who vowed to put Grosjean behind the wheel of a Mercedes for a test run if "nobody else within his universe of teams that he raced would provide him with such an opportunity".

That offer apparently hasn't been lost on Grosjean who now has Wolff's number on speed dial.

"I’m still very keen on jumping in the Mercedes F1 car for sure," the Dale Coyne Racing IndyCar driver told the media on Wednesday.

"It’s an offer that you cannot refuse, just for me to have an understanding of the taste of that car and how it was working. So yes, definitely [interested].

"At the minute I think they’re absolutely flat out in building the new car for the new season and understanding when it’s going to start and how it’s gonna go.

"I won’t phone Toto right now, but he can expect to get a phone call eventually, me asking to have a go at it. It could be absolutely beautiful.

"But also right now, I’m going to the US in 15 days and I’m going to spend some time there, and learn about IndyCar.

"So I just want to get the full IndyCar program going before looking at other things."

• Read also - Grosjean: 'I can't put my family through that phase again'

Grosjean said he was "touched" by Wolff's offer, but admitted that he won't be chasing the opportunity to saddle a Silver Arrows in the near future given the championship winning team's current "flat out" schedule.

"I have spoken with someone there and they say right now we are very busy with building the new cars and so on," he said. "Which I know – I’ve been Formula 1 long enough to understand that this time of the year the factories are running flat-out as much as you can with COVID, on getting the cars ready.

"So, I think it’s just not a good time to chase that. But I will give a phone call to Toto at one point and see what can be done.

"The offer really touched me in a good way. I was surprised that it was such a natural way of going for it. And obviously I would love to do it."

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