Habul was overtaking Grove at Skyline when the cars made side-to-side contact, sending Grove into the wall before the car took flight.
Grove was taken to hospital where the full extent of his injuries are to be determined.
As yet, the team has not commented on the crash beyond a statement released during the race.
“The first thing I want to say is that my thoughts are with Stephen Grove,” said a downcast Habul.
“He’s a super guy and I’m completely shocked with what happened. He pulled over, he braked really early – we get along good – I went down the inside and I couldn’t even see his car when we touched.
“You don’t want that for anybody – and that sort of dramatic accident, he could have gone over the wall. I want to go see him and try and help him a little bit. But I’m sorry for that. I certainly didn’t know what happened and it was not intentional in any way for anybody.
Take the short survey.
“I just feel really bad for him.”
Habul’s podium finish marked his fourth consecutive podium finish. All of those have been with Jules Gounon, and the last three have been with Luca Stolz.
The podium almost wasn’t to be after early tyre trauma with a slow puncture.
“They came on the radio and said ‘Can you do a triple stint on the tyres?’ and I’m like ‘I’m 51 years old, I drive three or four times a year, you want me to triple-stint and one of them is 40 degrees and the other is at 70 and you want me to triple-stint them?’
“That was very difficult but I’m glad I got through it and did the best I could just to keep it off the walls in the end.
“I’m really thankful to Luca. Luca is a quiet achiever, just punches in the times, gets out of the car, no sweat, no nothing. Same with Jules. They just kept pounding and pounding.
“For sure, our car didn’t have the speed today. We tried everything, it was very unstable across the top all week and we didn’t the best we could. I’m just happy to be here.
“I’ve got a house here. My favourite shops are here: fish and chip shop, my favourite bakery, so I’m glad I get to come here once a year. I love the place.”
Habul brought the Mercedes-AMG GT3 out of retirement from his car collection for this year’s race.
“There’s a pretty big bill from the crane guy, I can tell you that much,” he joked. “From six floors up!”
Discussion about this post