Grosjean happy to keep the talking "on the track"; will be back for IndyCar test

Grosjean's nine year F1 career came to an abrupt end in a harrowing November crash in Bahrain in which he pulled himself from a fireball of wreckage in a real-time spectacle of the dangers of motorsports. His oldest child is 7 and wasn't sold on Grosjean returning to racing in a car he's never driven and a brand new series in the United States.

"We started chatting about it and they asked a lot of questions about the safety in the cars, the speed, and I told them as much as I could," Grosjean told The Associated Press by telephone from France. "Then I got them involved in designing my helmet and the oldest one, Sasha, I was training my neck the other day and he came and said 'Daddy, I am happy you are training your neck. That means you are going racing.'

"It was a very small sentence for him, but it was a lot of meaning for me."

Grosjean, who missed the final two races of the F1 season and was not retained by American team Haas, will, at last, be back in a car Feb. 22 during the IndyCar test at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. His hands are still healing but he expects to be able to put driving gloves on next week without fear of disrupting the scabbing.

Even after the crash Grosjean continued his plans to move to IndyCar. He'd been inquiring with teams since Haas declined to retain both Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen and had been convinced that IndyCar was the right move.

(Image credit: AP)