Before Formula One Grouillard was born, in
Fenouillet. He started racing karts from the age of 14 and competed in the Volant Elf in 1981 and progressed to
Formula Renault in 1982 and took the title. In 1983, Grouillard went into
French F3 and drove for the ORECA team racing a Martini Mk39
Alfa Romeo to finish 4th scoring 33 points. Driving a Martini Mk42 in 1984 brought him the title and scored 108 points. For 1985, Grouillard competed in the inaugural season of
F3000 spending the year mostly confined to qualifying in the midfield but delivered good races along with reliability. In 1986, he left ORECA to join Formula Team Ltd driving a Lola T86/50
Cosworth. At
Mugello, Grouillard finished 4th despite taking an early lead. At the Osterrichring he took 6th and overall scored 4 points despite limited participation as the team was short on funding. Grouillard returned to ORECA for 1987 in a March 87B Cosworth. His performances dropped despite having impressive qualifying record throughout the season. For 1988, Grouillard moved to the GBDA Motorsport driving a Lola T88/50 Cosworth. He once again showed potential during qualifying and was regularly scoring points along with wins. Grouillard was slightly injured in a crash during the 1988 Birmingham Superprix sustaining bruised ankles although observers initially thought that Grouillard had broken both his legs. Grouillard was able to start the race but had to run to the pit lane for the spare car after his car suffered a failure with the engine. Grouillard however, did not start the race. Grouillard also raced a series of works and semi-works
BMW M3's for
BMW in the
1987 World Touring Car Championship and the
1988 European Touring Car Championships Formula One 1989 Grouillard joined
Ligier to fill in the seat left by
Stefan Johansson and was the team-mate to
René Arnoux for 1989. He qualified 22nd in his first race in
Brazil and finished ninth. At
Imola, he overcame spinning his car to start in 10th, but was disqualified when mechanics worked on his car during a red flag stint, caused by the accident of
Gerhard Berger at Tamburello. He started outside the top-ten at
Monaco and
Mexico, finishing eighth in the latter but was unable to qualify in
Phoenix and
Montréal. He started from 17th at his home race at the
French Grand Prix and drove to sixth, despite having issues with the tyres and gearbox, scoring his only World Championship point. For the last six races, Grouillard failed to qualify higher than 20th and did not qualify in
Portugal. In qualifying for the
Belgian Grand Prix at
Spa, Grouillard impeded the
Lotus of
Nelson Piquet by staying on the racing line whilst the Brazilian was on his last flying lap. On the dirty line, Piquet spun off and shook his fist at Grouillard as he passed by. This cost the triple World Champion his chances in qualifying and the race, and it was to be the first of such incidents involving Grouillard's misuse of his mirrors. At Adelaide, he spun which followed a heavy crash in the rain. In fact, for the season ending
Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, he kept the Ligier mechanics busy by spinning off and hitting the concrete walls twice during practice and qualifying as well as in the race morning warm up session (which was wet) and the race. During his last 2–3 seasons in Formula One, Arnoux had gained the reputation of being a blocker, a driver who rarely used his mirrors and regularly held up others both in qualifying and races. Unfortunately this trait seemed to have been passed on to Grouillard, who was fast gaining his own reputation of being a blocker.
1990 Grouillard joined the Italian
Osella team, taking the seat of
Nicola Larini, who in return took Grouillard's seat at Ligier. He was not partnered for 1990 as the financially struggling Osella scaled back their operations, meaning Grouillard had to pre-qualify for the races. He managed to qualify in 8th in
Phoenix ahead of
Nigel Mansell and
Alessandro Nannini which amazed many people in Formula One. During the race, Grouillard was hit by
Riccardo Patrese's
Williams at the second corner and eventually retired after a second collision with the Swiss driver
Gregor Foitek. At
Brazil, he retired after another collision involving
Michele Alboreto. For
Imola, the car was upgraded, but that did not help the team as Grouillard retired (not before blocking Mansell in qualifying and ruining the Ferrari's qualifying run, earning the Frenchman a fist wave from Mansell, and not for the last time). He also failed to qualify at
Monaco. Two consecutive finishes outside the top-ten at
Canada and
Mexico were followed up with a poor run in pre-qualifying for
France, ending up not qualifying for the race and at
Silverstone and
Hockenheim, where he also failed to qualify along with another failure to pre-qualify at
Hungary. Grouillard finished 16th at
Spa with retirements at
Monza and
Jerez with wheel bearing problems that plagued the Frenchman throughout the year. At the season ending
Australian Grand Prix in
Adelaide, Grouillard finished 13th and again held up Nigel Mansell during the race which led to the British driver shaking his fist at the Frenchman in front of the on-board camera.
CART Grouillard arranged to drive with the Indy Regency Team in a Lola T92/00 for 1993 in the CART PPG World Series following Nigel Mansell in the series. His first race was the
Indianapolis 500, where he did not qualify. After the 500, Grouillard showed consistency and had a reliable car finishing in eight out of 11 events with only one mechanical retirement at Michigan and a collision with
Arie Luyendyk at Vancouver. Overall, Grouillard finished 28th overall taking four points.
Sports Car racing 1994–2001 Unable to make a success in CART, Grouillard returned to Europe in 1994 and raced sports cars in the BPR Global GT series. He had previous experience in 1990 where he and co-drivers
Martin Donnelly and
Kenny Acheson qualified 5th at Le Mans but gearbox problems prevented the trio from starting. He came 16th in a Venturi 400 Trophy with Herve Pulain coming in fourth in GT5 class before driving five races in an Agusta Racing Team Venturi 600LM with
Christophe Bouchut taking second at Montlehry and fifth at Vallelunga and also raced at Le Mans in a Jacadi Racing Venturi 600Lm with
Michel Ferté and Michel Neugarten with engine problems ending their race. Grouillard remained with Mach One, and
Harrods came on board as sponsor. Retirements plagued the team for the first four rounds were remedied by victory at Silverstone and a sixth at Le Mans where they were joined by
Derek Bell. Further finishes came at Anderstorp, Suzuka and Brands Hatch where he came fourth, third and second respectively. Grouillard failed to qualify at Spa in a Friesinger Motorsport Porsche 911 GT2 Evo shared with Wolfgang Kaufmann and at Nogaro driving a BBA Competition Mclaren F1 GTP with Jean-Luc Maury-Lariberre, he failed to finish. Grouillard finished 8th with 106 points. Throughout the season, he also competed in other events such as the Daytona 24 Hours with Derek Hill and Gildo Pastor Pallanca with a transmission problem forcing the trio out. Grouillard entered the FIA GT Championship in 1997 in a Dave Price Racing Panoz GTP Ford, teamed up with
David Brabham and
Perry McCarthy and also competed in Japanese GT finishing 2nd at Suzuka in a
Toyota Supra with Masami Kageyama. For that year's Le Mans race, Grouillard drove in a Courage Compétition C36 Porsche with
Mario Andretti and his son
Michael, but retired after fifteen and a half hours. Grouillard returned to the race in 1998, driving a La Filiere Courage C36 Porsche with
Henri Pescarolo and
Franck Montagny managing to finish 16th. Grouillard's other entry was the International Sports Racing Series at Misano, but did not compete as his entrant failed to attend the race. For 2000, Grouillard raced in the
American Le Mans Series driving a
Courage C52 Peugeot with
Sébastien Bourdais coming 6th at Silverstone and entered the Nurburgring round but did not take part in practice. At Le Mans, he finished fourth. In 2001, Grouillard looked to join Pescarolo Sport at Le Mans but was replaced by
Boris Derichebourg ending Grouillard's motorsport career. ==Racing record==