After protracted negotiations, the inevitable was confirmed today as it was announced Romain Grosjean would remain with the Lotus team next year. After initially looking to leave the team after a difficult start to the season, a lack of available race winning seats and Lotus announcing their deal for Mercedes engines next year proved enough to convince Grosjean to remain with the team alongside Pastor Maldonado next season.
Grosjean commented on the announcement "We've been waiting to announce it for a while now so it's really good to finally confirm that I will be staying with the team next season,My finger's been poised over the tweet button for quite a while and there might even have been a little jump-start! Fortunately, there's no stop and go penalty." The last portion relates to his mix up last week where he prematurely tweeted he would be staying with the team next year, before quickly deleting it.
After a tricky start to his F1 career both in 2009 with Renault and then again in 2012 Grosjean has matured into a respected F1 driver who has the ability to be a front runner as he showed late last year for the Lotus team. This now means the only realistically open seat left in F1 for next year is the second Scuderia Toro Rosso seat alongside rookie Max Verstappen. Lotus will be looking to improve on a very difficult 2014 season. although the switch to Mercedes power should significantly help the team, as they aim to return to the front of the grid next year.
