INDIANAPOLIS — Just when you thought one legal case between a driver and a team wasn’t enough, how about two.
Last year it was the Alex Palou vs. Chip Ganassi Racing saga. Ganassi held the rights to Palou’s services in 2023. The option was in his hands. He exercised it. Palou didn’t like it. He signed a deal with Arrow McLaren Racing. Ganassi fought back and took them through litigation.
It never got much further as McLaren and Palou knew they didn’t have much of a leg to stand on so Palou came back to Ganassi.
However, most assumed Palou was going to McLaren then for 2024. But, with the F1 opportunity drying up, it was going to be in INDYCAR instead. Meanwhile, Palou and Ganassi patched things up and were thriving. Palou had a change of heart. He no longer wanted to go to McLaren. He wanted to stay.
Ganassi offered a hefty sum and Palou agreed to come back for 2024 and beyond. McLaren felt wronged. They felt like he signed a contract with them for F1 and INDYCAR and on the F1 side was for future tests, practice session and a reserve driver role. They had also signed sponsorship tied to Palou for their cars.
By him breaching, they’re now suing him for damages.
We also have a new legal proceeding now. It’s Romain Grosjean vs. Andretti Autosport.
Some may wonder, what in the world is he doing? How can a driver that had an expiring contract take his former team to arbitration?
Well, for starters, it’s likely down to intent. To start the 2023 season off with, Grosjean looked like a championship front runner. It seemed like it was going to be a foregone conclusion that he’d be back in his seat with a new deal in 2024.
“I think when your team boss comes to see you and says that’s probably the best drive he’s seen in INDYCAR, he’s been around for a long time, Michael (Andretti), you take that as a win,” Romain Grosjean said following his runner-up finish at Barber.
At the time, Grosjean was on a path to returning to Andretti Autosport. Without a contract in place for 2024 yet, it was seeming like a formality.
Both sides said that they’d talk in May but by the end of the month, a new deal should be put in place.
Nothing ever came out of it.
From what I’ve been told, Grosjean and his team came up with a new contract and presented it to Andretti’s team. When they did so is up to debate? Grosjean signed it. Andretti’s did not. So one would assume that it could be a simple case open, case closed type of suit.
However, Grosjean is going to argue intent here. He’s going to say that he never looked elsewhere because he always was under the pretense that he would be coming back. He’s going to try and use Andretti’s words against him and say that by time he was told he wasn’t coming back after all, there was nothing else left to drive.
Bruce Martin and NBC Sports rported in Portland that Grosjean confirmed to him that he won’t be coming back in 2024.
Was that timing guided to when rides were already being announced? Several open seats were off the table by that point.
On Andretti’s side, they’re going to argue that the intra team drama and lack of results give them due cause to not sign that contract that Grosjean and his team drew up.
Sure, coming into the Month of May fifth in points, 15 out of the lead after 2 runner-up finishes, would be grounds for a contract extension.
But, the wheels then fell off.
A crash in the Indy 500. A crash in Detroit. 25th in Road America. That could have given Andretti signs to pause. Maybe they wait to review that contract again. He was showing signs of the driver he was in 2022 and coming back in 2023 and maybe those runner-ups were just flashes but not reality. Maybe this is who he actually was and with tearing up a lot of equipment, maybe going in a new direction was better for the team.
He’s crashed out while battling for the lead in St. Pete. He crashed out while running in the top 5 with two laps remaining in Texas. 4 crashes in the first 7 races could have made Andretti not want to sign what Grosjean was presenting.
Mistake compounded by more mistakes left that relationship soured.
Grosjean felt he offered what Andretti wanted. Andretti could have gotten cold feet because this was getting expensive.
Coming into Indy, Grosjean’s average finish was 9.0 with two runner-up finishes and two poles. In the races following, he was 11th, 30th, 24th, 25th.
With a week off between Road America and Mid-Ohio, it was maybe then that Andretti wanted to wait and see if Grosjean could turn this around. It could also be then that Grosjean got nervous and frustrated. Why aren’t they honoring what they told him he could have felt.
13th in Mid-Ohio followed by a crash in Toronto which left him 22nd could have made Andretti even more uneasy. 11th and 12th in Iowa and 6th in Nashville could have made Grosjean felt like he proved enough.
But Andretti maybe was looking at the bigger picture here.
In the final 13 races, Grosjean’s average finish was 17.07. Just one top 10.
Andretti could have been looking at this at being the final straw.
Grosjean had four top five finishes, six top 10’s and 53 laps led in 13 races for Dale Coyne Racing in 2021. For Andretti, it was a struggle. In 2022, he only had 3 top five finishes, seven top 10’s, three laps led last year. He did so in 17 races.
This year, two top fives, three top 10’s, 94 laps led in 17 races.
For a team like Andretti that had 1 car left out of the Leaders Circle, another car wadding up equipment and a sponsor potentially leaving, it didn’t make dollars and cents to reup with Grosjean.
In Grosjean’s side, he felt like he was promise an extension was coming.
The rest is up to a judge at this point.
Race Review Online 