Grouillard remained with Osella, which had been bought out and renamed to Fondmetal. The team had to race with the car used for the two previous years, which led to Grouillard not being able to get past pre-qualifying at Phoenix and Interlagos. A new car was built, but this did not change Grouillard's season, as he had further three failures to pre-qualify. A change of fortune did come at Mexico, where he qualified his season-best 10th, but was forced to start from the pit lane after suffering from mechanical problems in the car, and he eventually succumbed to an engine failure after 14 laps. He retired in his home race at France with an oil leak, and had further failures to pre-qualify at Silverstone and Hockenheim. In Hungary, Grouillard managed to get into the main qualifying event, but eventually failed to qualify. At Spa-Francorchamps, he finished a lap down in 10th and retired from an engine failure at Monza with just 7 laps to go. Grouillard failed to qualify in Portugal, and had to take a spare gearbox, with the old one failing to work. He refused to let the car use a new gearbox, and was sacked a few days later by team boss Gabriele Rumi. He managed to join AGS in the seat vacated by his replacement at Fondmetal, Gabriele Tarquini, for the next race at Catalunya. For the race, Grouillard was the slowest in pre-qualifying behind new team-mate Fabrizio Barbazza, with the AGS team folding before the pair could get to Japan and Australia.