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He seemed to be going great guns 2013-15. Really mature, maximising his results. Not endangering the life of everyone else on track. The future looked, at worst, reasonable.
Then came the move to Haas to try and get into Ferrari through the backdoor. It didn't seem that good an idea at the time and hasn't proven to be five years on, the dream of receiving the Maranello call and hitting the F1 big time just too unrealistic.
There were attempts to stay relevant: a flamboyant donut and burnout in the middle of the pack in Spain 2018 set pulses racing. And who could ever forget his brilliant portrayal of 'cowed underling' in Netflix's brilliant fictional series Drive to Survive, audiences left spellbound at his portrayal of emotional struggle at the hands of perma-angry, abusive boss Guenther. But he was even upstaged in that as Haas found a barely credible business magnate for season 2 (this is where the show jumped the shark for me).
The whole Haas/Grosjean thing peaked in the first race really, Australia 2016. Since then he was probably looking back at the days when Mark Webber wanted to batter him in the paddock with rosy nostalgia.
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