Formula 1: Will 2019 be Romain Grosjean’s final season driving for Haas?

Given his struggles, will the 2019 Formula 1 season be the final season at Haas for Romain Grosjean, who has driven for the team since they entered Formula 1?

Last year at this time, it appeared almost certain that Romain Grosjean would no longer be driving for Haas by the time the 2019 Formula 1 season rolled around.

While he had a fourth place finish in the Austrian Grand Prix to his name, the highest finish in Haas history, this was his lone top 10 finishes in the season’s first 10 races, and he had been forced to retire from four of these 10 races.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Charles Leclerc had even been tipped to replace the 33-year-old Frenchman as the teammate to Kevin Magnussen for the 2019 season before he ended up being signed by Scuderia Ferrari to replace Kimi Raikkonen instead.

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But Grosjean ended up re-signing with the sport’s lone American team only a few weeks later, largely due to how he stepped up following his rocky start.

After failing to score any points in the season’s first eight races, he recorded five top 10 finishes in the next six races, although the fifth of these top 10 finishes, a sixth place finish in the Italian Grand Prix, was stripped from him through a disqualification. He re-signed with the team after the 21-race season’s 15th race, the Singapore Grand Prix.

Make no mistake about it; Grosjean could definitely return for what would be his fifth consecutive season driving for the team in their fifth season in the sport next year. However, after an even more disastrous start to the 2019 season, replacement will probably be the route that Haas take if he doesn’t improve in the near future.

Last season, Grosjean retired from five races, which is the same number of races from which he has retired through the 21-race 2019 season’s first 10 races. Additionally, he has not finished higher than 10th place all season long.

His two top 10 finishes in the Spanish Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix have netted him only two points, placing him in 17th out of 20 drivers in the driver standings and 17th out of 18 among the 18 drivers (all of the non-Williams drivers) who have actually scored points this year.

Magnussen has performed equally poorly in the top 10 finish category, but when he has finished in the top 10, he has done so quite comfortably with a sixth place finish in the Australian Grand Prix and a seventh place finish in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Additionally, his only retirement of the season so far came in the British Grand Prix after he and Grosjean made contact on the opening lap. In practice for this race, Grosjean had already wrecked — in the pits.

NOTE: Skip to 0:36 in the video.

Through the season’s first 10 races, Magnussen has averaged a 10.8 starting position and a 13.7 finishing position while Grosjean has averaged a 11.6 starting position and a 15.6 average finishing position. Grosjean leads only Williams teammates George Russell, a rookie, and Robert Kubica in the latter.

Will Romain Grosjean do what he needs to do to warrant Haas re-signing him for the 2020 Formula 1 season like he did last year for the 2019 season following a rocky start, or will he end up being booted by Haas after the 2019 season reaches its conclusion and spend the 2020 season away from the team for which he has driven since they entered the sport ahead of the 2016 season?