Yahoo News Double amputee Billy Monger targeting F1 legacy after remarkable return to racing
Billy Monger has already changed motorsport forever, but that is not enough for this pioneering double amputee.
Monger’s promising racing career was all but ended in a horror crash at Donington Park in April 2017. Just days before his 18th birthday, Monger woke up in hospital three days later having lost both of his legs thanks to the nightmare accident.
He immediately set his sights on a return to racing, something which didn’t initially sit well with parents Rob and Amanda.
“For them it was probably the last thing they expected and wanted me to say because of what happened but the way I see it I’ve dedicated so much of my life to this sport, and so has everyone around me and considering how successful this season was I wouldn’t give this up if anybody told me to,” Monger told Standard Sport.
“Of course they put up some fight to it but once they came around to it and realised how much I wanted to do it and how it was going to give me a purpose in life then I think that made a big difference.”
After just under a year, ‘Billy Whizz’ was back racing, and at a division higher than that which he had his crash.
Moving up to British F3, Monger was on the podium at Oulton Park, having been picked up by the Carlin team, who put him in a specially adapted car. Even to get to that point, though, there were further challenges. At the time of his crash, the FIA (racing’s governing body) did not allow disabled drivers to race single-seaters.
A trip to Paris to meet with the sport’s lawmakers changed that rule. For Monger, though, that already fine legacy is just the start.
“Obviously that is a great thing to have achieved,” he said.
“To have the rule overturned so that anyone can compete in single-seaters, that is great but I want my legacy to be for being one of the greatest F1 drivers, or just being an F1 driver really.
“If I could somehow manage to make that dream a reality, I think that would be a real awesome achievement for me, and a legacy I would be proud of.”
Perhaps the most striking thing about Monger is that he talks about his accident without inhibition. Celebrating his 18th at Queen’s Medical Centre, Monger was quick to familiarise himself with what happened.
“It has taken time to get to the stage where I can talk about it openly, before I acknowledged the accident and when I was in hospital I watched it just to make myself more aware of what had happened because it happened so quickly I didn’t fully understand it.
“Everyone expects me to be in disbelief and kind of be scared about it but because it had already happened I wasn’t worried about it at all, I just watched it to fill myself in as the driver, in terms of what happened, because it was so quick. Apart from that, there was nothing I was really watching it for. It didn’t really make me upset or anything like that.”
Having finished sixth in his first season back in racing, Monger is now on the hunt for sponsors to join the next step of his journey, involved in courting and selecting ones he feels will be there for the long haul.
It won’t hurt that he has quite the ally in his corner. His accident caught the eye of now five-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, and it is a relationship which still brings a beaming smile to Monger’s face when mentioned.
"It’s crazy really," he adds. "The fact that Lewis Hamilton was probably one of the few drivers who really inspired me when I was young, back in 2008 when I was eight or nine, I’d just started karting and was really enjoying it and to see a British driver go out and start winning World Championships, that inspired me so much. I wanted to be, not like him because I want to it my way, but I wanted to get to the level he has, and achieve some of things he achieved.
"We still keep in touch, obviously at the minute he’s quite busy, but I’m glad he won his fifth title and for me just having shared the experiences I have with him is more than enough than I could have ever wished for, I’m just super happy and proud of the time I’ve already spent with him.”
Driven: The Billy Monger Story will premiere on BBC Three via iPlayer on Sunday 18th November and will be broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 19th November at 9pm
