Monger – Motorsport is as safe it can be right now

Billy Monger feels that global motorsport is as safe as it can be in the present climate and that you “can never predict everything” when it comes to the issue of safety.

Monger lost both of his legs in a freak British F4 accident at Donnington Park last year and praised the work done by authorities to make the sport as safe as possible.

“Motorsport is as safe as it can be at the moment, the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to make it safer, there’s been so much pioneered over the years that if we were racing with the standards that we had back in the 80s and 90s it would be worse, we’re in a much better place now.

“There’s still stuff that you can improve on, with my accident they’ve made changes to the F4 cars so that hopefully the same thing that happened to me won’t happen again,  we can do our best to try and eliminate everything.”

Monger thanked well-wishers for their continued support, and said that they played a big part in getting him through the ordeal after his accident.

“The support I’ve had has been crazy, I can fault it and it’s been overwhelmingly good and I only hope that others in this situation get the support I got because the amount of support I got after what happened to me really helped me pull through.”

The 19-year-old from Reigate qualified third on the grid for Saturday’s British F3 race at Brands Hatch, and says that the infamous “leggie” celebration – drinking champagne from his prosthetic leg in a reference to Daniel Ricciardo’s “shoey”, may return after it debuted at Spa.

“I said to the team that if I win this weekend then they’ve all got it drink out of it, not just me so that’s the goal to get everyone drinking out of my leg. I don’t want to overuse it but it will come out again, but I’d love to do it while winning.”

Monger says that the celebration came about after a chat with an ex-soldier wounded while on tour.

“The leggy came about as I’ve recently spent a lot of time with some ex-military people, one in particular told me that he sometimes drinks out of his leg when he gets drunk, so I thought that “I’ve never tried it, why not?”.

“The podium at Spa was a great result, it just popped into my to do it with some champagne on the podium. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, it’s a first for me.”