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WATCH: Grosjean and Latifi explain the crash that triggered Grosjean’s sweary radio rant in Turkey
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Romain Grosjean has never been afraid to voice his opinion on team radio, and the Frenchman delivered a pained message after being hit by Nicholas Latifi in Turkey.
Latifi was struggling at the back of the field and was being lapped by both Daniel Ricciardo and Grosjean on the approach to Turn 9, moving off line to allow both cars to pass. But the Williams driver was nearing the apex of the corner as Grosjean turned in, and as Latifi was on the wet part of track he understeered into the Haas, tapping both into a spin that ultimately saw the pair retire.
The reaction from Grosjean on team radio was an emotional one – as you can hear in the video clip above – as he attempted to regain control and rejoin the race in difficult conditions, with what turned out to be terminal damage.
READ MORE: 5 winners and 5 losers from the Turkish Grand Prix
“It was tricky as expected, very slippery,” Grosjean said afterwards. “We struggled all weekend to generate tyre temperature and I didn’t feel very comfortable in the car so I couldn’t really push the way I wanted. Sometimes in the race it was getting better, sometimes it was not, and then Nicky crashed into me and the floor was very heavily damaged so we retired the car.
WATCH: Romain Grosjean on Latifi crash and Turkish GP struggles
“Obviously we’re struggling with the pace and we were struggling in those conditions from the beginning so it was always going to be hard. If there were mixed conditions maybe we could have done something but in a pure wet race, a bit harder.”
Latifi took the blame for the incident but was only handed a reprimand from the stewards as they felt “his actions were mitigated by the very challenging track conditions in that corner”, and the Canadian was also struggling with visibility.
“First off it was my mistake, but I think the first thing worth noting is other drivers were struggling with the same thing, as I heard afterwards, but I could not see out of my mirrors from basically lap one,” Latifi said. "Not from rain or fog, they were just coated in a layer of dust and dirt, like the rest of the car.
“When you’re on the same lap and pace as everyone it’s manageable but obviously as I fell back quite early on and was straightaway out of sequence and into that spiral you can’t get out of. It was very tricky to manage, you can only rely on the radio messages so much [with] gaps and stuff.
"I know when they’re within a second because of the beep from the blue lights but then so much of letting the drivers by is seeing and using your eyes.
“It was just unfortunate that I got the gap, whichever Renault it was, Grosjean followed, I pulled off to the side, broke on the inside line to let them have the racing line, but they were much further back than I thought as I couldn’t see them.
“When the Renault went by I was by the turning point, but had no grip and understeered into Romain. It was my mistake but it was unfortunate. You could argue I could have braked earlier but at the same time it could go either way as you still have to judge where they are on track.”
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