[h=2]INTERVIEW: Monger's next drive[/h] Saturday, 24 June 2017


By Stephen Kilbey / Images by JEP & Ehrhardt/LAT, DailySportscar.com

Eighteen-year-old British F4 driver Billy Monger, who lost both his legs below the knee in an accident at Donington Park earlier this year, is still pursuing his dream. Last week at Le Mans, he announced that he will be joining Frederic Sausset's Academy, and aims to take the start at the 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours as part of the project.
Motivated and eager to get back on track, Monger told RACER that despite his life-changing injuries, being a professional racing driver is still possible.
"I think every driver who starts in motorsport, has the goal of reaching Formula 1, and that was my goal watching Lewis Hamilton race," Monger said. "Le Mans is an amazing event though, and to be out and competing again would be an achievement in itself.
"This new academy has a three-year plan to get a team of drivers to race at Le Mans in 2020. That's the end of the project. Obviously, he wants it to be sustainable, a long-term project that carries on into the future.
"It's a great idea to get disabled drivers and disabled people to the top of motorsport. If the Olympics they can do it, then doing it in motorsport would be great. Fred has got a real aim to meet that."
After testing in late September and early October, Monger's first race with the academy will be in November when the European VdeV series heads to Portugal for a weekend at Estoril. There he will race a specially adapted Ligier JS53 Evo 2 CN prototype that's adapted to his legs. He will then compete for the first time, controlling the throttle and brakes with his thighs. He'll race as part of a three-driver team with Sausset and Christophe Tinseau, a former Pescarolo Sport driver who drove with Sausset at Le Mans last year, and isn't disabled.
"The first race as a team is at Estoril at the end of the year in VdeV, with Fred and Christophe Tinseau as my teammates," Monger said. "I'm looking forward to it and hopefully I'll be ready and fully fit. It's going to be a tough few weeks of training and adapting to the systems that they use. But I think I can do it."
Monger is already well on his way to being able to compete on track once again. He told RACER that there was never a point where he thought that giving up was an option. Instead, he's been training, and doing everything he can to ensure that he's ready to race.
"I've driven a car around a field at our house. But nothing on a track since the accident," he explained. "That will be the next step, is to get me back on track, behind the wheel and see where I need to improve. At the minute, I haven't had much experience in a car, but I plan to get a lot of experience in before we race so we're at the sharp end of the grid.
"I drove a single seater in the Carlin sim, it was an F3-spec car," he continued. "It took a while to get used to it, on the sim. But I kept improving and I got within three seconds of their F3 drivers on the same track so for my first time it was a good effort.