Amid declining television audiences over the last few years, F1 has in recent times established an official presence on platforms such as Twitter and YouTube – despite Bernie Ecclestone’s long-standing opposition.

But the sport’s policy on the usage of video footage remains extremely strict, to the frustration of Grosjean, who says that a big opportunity for grand prix racing to gain a wider following is being squandered as a result.

“I ran a live video on my Facebook page during our filming day, as well as from my room yesterday,” he explained to Motorsport.com in an exclusive interview.

“And the FOM asked me to remove all the videos. We had more than a million views on all the videos.

“I think it's great, it allows people to see F1, what it's like inside, behind the scenes, but we're not allowed.”

The Haas driver added: “F1 is too narrow-minded - we say that we lose fans, but nowadays, social networks have so many billion people in the world - and we're not allowed to make the most of them.”

The Frenchman was, however, supportive of the new fan-voted ‘Driver of the Day’ award that is being adopted in 2016, saying: “There's the fan vote for the driver of the day, which is good, having fans behind us. It's rather cool.”

Interview by Basile Davoine and Benjamin Vinel