The car bisected at the point where the driver's protective carbon fiber "tub" connects to the powertrain and rear bodywork. Rather than absorbing the impact, the wall halted Grosjean's car immediately. The nose of his car seemed to hit precisely at a seam in the three-layer guardrail, splitting the barrier open. Grosjean's trajectory just so happened to put him nearly perpendicular to the wall. Bahrain's Turn 3 exit, however, is a temporary guardrail, one that juts out into the paved off-track area meant to allow drivers to recover from exactly this sort of collision. On an ordinary Formula 1 track, Grosjean would have collided with a wall at a forgiving diagonal, spreading the impact out over the nose and sidepod of the car as it slid along the wall or guardrail. This is when his right-rear corner struck the right-front corner of Daniil Kvyat's AlphaTauri entry, forcing Grosjean off track at a high speed. Grosjean saw the opportunity to take another position, maybe even a few, heading into Turn 4, so he dove to the inside line and prepared to out-brake the cars that had exited Turn 3 with far less momentum. He was already making up positions heading into Turn 1, and light contact between a Ferrari and a McLaren on the exit of Turn 3 created even more opportunity. A poor start by second-placed Valtteri Bottas slowed the entire rest of the field, creating chaos and an opportunity for Grosjean to make up spots in a car that has struggled for outright pace for the past year. Romain Grosjean started Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix from 19th on the grid.
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