Billy Monger Reveals How He Races After Loosing His Legs

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The last thing I remember is basically driving up the crest of a hill.

I'm presented with this stationary car, and I hit the back of this stationary car.

I was awake for about 45 minutes in the cockpit before I was put into an induced coma.

Life since then has been about, basically, really.

My name's Billy Munger. I was a racing driver.

The girl from probably about the age of 10 or 11 wanted to be in Formula 1.

It was scary getting back in a racing car, but looking back, it was so much scarier if you did it.

If I hadn't got back to racing, I think that that is just mentally a really daunting prospect.

How alien did those controls feel to you at first?

I had a lever behind the steering wheel on the left.

I would sort of use my index finger and middle finger to pull, and that was the throttle.

On my right hand, we had the gears, and I broke with my right leg.

How did you get onto the grid to present for the first time in a pundit role?

I said no, initially, because I was so focused on racing and driving myself.

I don't necessarily want to be a presenter of Formula 1, but I wanted to be the driver.

The whole first few months really was a bit of a blur, and there definitely were highs and lows

and tums where I was a bit like, why me?

I've got back behind the wheel of a single seat car again,

and I remember that day just being like, smiling ear to ear.

Do you ever think that, do you know what, I wouldn't go back to how I was before?

Good question.

Billy, stories like yours are literally why I started Road to Success.

It's to be inspired, it's to show courage, bravery, all the things we think of in truly amazing individuals.

But in your own words, who are you and what do you do?

Yeah, I guess so. My name's Billy Munger.

I was a racing driver, and I started go-karting when I was six years old.

Progress through the ranks until I got into British Formula 4 when I was 17,

and then I had a racing crash where I became a double amputee.

And then life since then has been about basically learning to walk again and getting back in a race car,

racing again as a double amputee against overworldly drivers,

and then in more recent times, a few different charity-based challenges and bits and pieces as well as media career.

Obviously, so much good and bad has come from that moment,

because amazing things have sprung from it, but also a complete different challenge to life has come from it.

But I like to get inside your head a little bit of what it makes you feel like on a day-to-day basis.

Do you get annoyed with constantly being asked about one continuous moment in your life over and over and over again?

Yeah, good question. I think for me, I find it boring in a way,

because I obviously have talked about it lots and lots of times,

but I can understand why people ask the question because it is a huge moment in my life,

and I have, like you say, a lot of good and bad and opportunities and sort of learnings have come from that moment.

So it's definitely a pivotal moment in my life, but I've just talked about it a lot.

It obviously added fire and ambition to yourself as an athlete though,

because before racing driver locked in, now your world as an athlete has opened up in so many ways

and you're doing all kinds of different sports. You've done an Ironman sub-17 minute, insane.

So do you ever kind of have that moment to think about, I wouldn't want to be any different?

Do you ever think that, you know what, I wouldn't go back to how I was before?

Yeah, I think for me, I try not to look too much in the past, like the past is the past,

and to be honest, looking back at the person I was before my accident and the person that I am now,

very different people have learned a lot through my accident, my experiences,

the opportunities that my accident has presented.

I actually think it's pointless to always look back on, you know, what if,

because this is my reality, this is my situation, so I'm just trying to make the best of it day to day

and live the best life I can.

I don't want to cover points that you've been asked over and over and over again,

so I'm going to try and get into some questions that you may not have been asked as much.

I want to ask, when you woke up, I think you said it was three or four days after that horrific crash,

on the hospital bed, kind of been in a coma, that's obviously going to be hearing that news

such a low point for a few days, you know, and adjustment, everything.

Yeah.

When was your first, like, glimpse of inspiration from what you could do from that moment

in the coming weeks, like, hang on a minute, like, maybe I can get back in a car,

maybe I could do this, maybe I could do that.

How quickly were you able to find a positive?

Yeah, I think it was fairly quickly, to be honest.

I think I had a lot of, like, friends, family, a lot of, like, my mechanics engineers from racing,

like, basically, a lot of support around me in hospital,

and basically, if you put enough people that love motor racing and motor sport in a room together,

eventually you're going to talk about motor racing, even though at the time it was obviously potentially, like,

a touchy subject because of the, you know, the injuries that had occurred from me racing.

But actually, I just started talking about racing and stuff with my mechanics engineers

that were coming to see me in hospital.

And then we started talking about, like, an Alex and Aldi, for example,

and how he lost both his legs in an IndyCar crash.

They went back to racing, so it was, like, just sort of sparked a bit of curiosity at me really of,

oh, okay, I wonder whether, potentially, I could go back to racing,

and it was as simple as that at first, and then sort of went from there.

And that you did because it was 11 days right before you were back in a car.

Is that right?

Well, yeah, it was around, no, 11 weeks.

11 weeks.

Yeah, so it was 11 weeks after my accident that I basically got my racing license back at Brandtatt.

So that was in a sort of VWB tool that was converted with hand controls

through a team called Team Brit who basically support military,

servicemen and veterans after, you know, if they have injuries

or just getting them integrated back into the workplace through motorsport,

that's their whole mission.

And they'd obviously come up with these controls for other soldiers that were missing limbs

and having to use hand controls.

And they basically asked me if I wanted to come down to Brandtatt,

but I'm buying a little of a car, and then it was sort of, you know,

racking at first and very different to what I was used to.

But over time, sort of, by the end of the day, I was sort of feeling more confident.

And then an instructor was at the track the same day as me.

He wasn't planned for me to get my license back and said,

oh, if you want, I can just follow you around in another car

and we can sort of assess your ability to still drive.

And I basically left them in my dust and I went, yeah,

I think you can have your license back based off of that.

So it was kind of, yeah, a weirdly simple process to get my license back.

But then to actually compete, there was a few more bits in between.

When you're like a top level athlete or you've been doing any sport,

even if you start football at seven and you're still doing it at 14,

you become so confident with kicking the football with pushing the accelerator.

If you're in a trade, you become so confident with hitting the hammers.

How alien did those controls feel to you at first?

And can you just kind of explain to people that have no idea

the difference between obviously traditional two, three pedals and a wheel, paddles,

and what you ended up going to, how do they work?

Yeah, definitely. It was very alien to me, the controls,

because particularly with the controls when I arrived on that day with Team Brit,

I hadn't seen those controls before.

So effectively, I turned up, they basically took the steering wheel for a car

and showed me basically the layout, throttle, paddle on this side,

braking, paddle on this side, gears here, clutch here.

So it was kind of like, you know, just me looking at it like,

it's almost like looking at a remote control for like a gaming console.

Is that how you pictured it, like an Xbox control?

Yeah, effectively. It's like this, you know, steering wheel,

but all of a sudden it had all these attachments and sort of, you know,

levers to pull and stuff like that.

And I was like trying to get my head around it.

And then I think that day was really important for me

from the longer term sort of aspects of my journey,

because I basically went away from there

and went back into sort of single-seater racing.

And that was obviously building a car just for me.

And I kind of like took some points of the controls from that that I liked.

But then also at that point, I was planning on breaking with my leg,

my right leg, where I still have my knee,

where I can still modulate a pedal.

So I had like sort of ideas of things,

I think we could, how we could improve it

plus weight things on that sort of system that I quite liked.

And in the end, the sort of system that we came up with

was I had a lever behind the steering wheel on the left

that I would sort of use my index finger and middle finger to pull

and that was the throttle lever.

On my right hand, we had the gears.

So top, again, index finger was to shift up gears,

middle finger to shift down.

And now I broke with my right leg.

And then I had a hand clutch mounted on the side of the cockpit

for launching off the line.

And how quick did that stuff become the feeling

of the footballer I describe or the carpenter?

Become normal.

The muscle memory does come actually pretty quickly, I would say.

At least to like a very, very close point.

So I'd probably say I was doing lots of days on the simulator,

so it's hard to put an exact number to it,

but I probably did 15, 20 days in the simulator

sort of developing the controls.

And then the controls at that point were probably fairly,

you know, the muscle memory was already starting to build

just through reps and just time spent on the sim

during each of those days.

But I guess the trickier part

and the part that I couldn't really develop

until I was competing properly again was...

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An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

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Mom talk has just been blowing up.

Whitney and Jen are on Dancing with the Stars.

Taylor is a bachelorette.

Saying that out loud is crazy. That is huge.

But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart.

It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.

My whole world is falling apart right now.

It's chaos.

With the controls, when everything was going well,

they were very good.

But in a racing environment where potentially

you have to avoid someone who's spun off

or, you know, if you make a mistake

and you have to catch a big oversteer moment,

those were the moments, actually, that the controls...

They were where the muscle memory was probably lacking.

So I remember on my first few race weekends,

when it was going well, I felt really in tune with the car

and at one, but when I was even making mistakes

or avoiding incidents and sometimes

those sort of things are out of your control,

that's where the controls I could feel like,

yeah, this is, I'm actually having to really think about this

and I'm experiencing these sort of things happening

for the first time, rather than, you know,

it being stuff that I've done a million times.

Could you have pictured yourself pre-incident?

Let's go up to 17 years old.

Ever presenting for the likes of Channel 4 for the Formula 1?

Yeah, definitely not.

It was not something that I envisaged for myself whatsoever.

I was a racing driver.

I competed in motorsport and wanted to be in Formula 1.

That was the goal from probably about the age of 10 or 11.

I started go-kiting when I was 6,

but I won my first British Championship when I was 10

and I think at that point I was like,

okay, maybe this can be, this isn't just a hobby,

this is like, this could be a career

and potentially I could, you know, make it to Formula 1

and be, you know, like as successful as a Lewis Hamilton

or a Jensen, but that was kind of default process.

So when you're kind of solely focused on that,

you don't really open yourself up to these other sort of

career paths or opportunities.

Were you the type of character that could have done it?

Or as much, because I've heard you say so many times

and I understand why.

You know, the Billy before is the same as Billy after.

But is there some elements of you that have changed?

Like, could the Billy before have put yourself on camera?

Like, did you have the personality characteristics to do that?

Or afterwards, have you learned to be a certain way

and be different to deal with the opportunities?

Yeah, I think fundamentally you're right.

I do view myself as the same person,

but it doesn't mean that there weren't learnings

and moments of growth that came from my accident

and probably, you know, a bit of wisdom and life experience

that sort of came through, sort of overcoming trauma

and realizing potentially how short life can be,

you know, how you want to make the most of every opportunity.

I do think that there were some learnings that came from that

that make me more well suited to being a better presenter

than basically if I'd been on camera before.

The only time I'd been on camera before my accident

was like in sort of post-race interviews

if I'd been on like the podium

and I'd be talking about how the race went for me

and it was all sort of self-focused

well then to then be a presenter

and to be asked on the other side of the camera

asking the questions to the drivers.

I think it helps that I've kind of, you know,

maybe got a bit more experience in life

and I can kind of, yeah, total line a bit more.

In what way? Just to elaborate on that a little bit.

I think, yeah, I just realized through my accident

just how important it is to have good people around you

and I think when I was just answering questions in interviews

you kind of, you know, you get a question, you give your answer

it's kind of quite a simple job from that aspect

so you're just answering what you're being told

but I think when you're the person asking the questions

I think there's more on it where it's like you want to, you know,

you want to come across as likeable

you want to ask questions that are going to bring the best out of that individual

so it becomes more important to have good people skills

and I think my accident gave me good people skills

because I almost effectively had to build a bit of a team around me

in order to sort of operate and work well with my physios, my doctors

with my mechanics and engineers when we were building the hand control

so I think I naturally became a more comfortable

sort of getting my ideas across and speaking to people

in my communication skills overall

which I think helped when you were presenting.

Yeah, dealing with people.

That's the thing, you learn to deal with people

and I think what's unique about your story

is you learn to deal with looking after people

that have usually looked after you.

Yeah, what I mean by that is I know the story

about how your dad bought your first car at two years old

and you can even get in it until you were six, et cetera

but you spoke or another podcast to listen to a little while ago

about your mother at the time of your accident

and how obviously devastated she was

and what had happened

and it's almost like you spoke as if you were coaching your mum on how to get through it

but from the person that it's happened to

you're like, okay, mum, right, let's get some counselling here

don't worry about me, you can do this, you need to think of this.

Have you always been that way

or is that something that comes from it as well?

The ability to kind of just take control

and manage everybody around it?

I think it was probably more the accident itself

that sort of made me that sort of way

because I think people I was seeing on a day-to-day basis

how people were looking after me

so then you want to also be there for other people.

I think it was more that

I could kind of feel everyone coming around me

and supporting me when I needed it most

so then when I could see that the people around me

were maybe struggling themselves

I was probably just maybe a little bit more aware

and kind of tried to as much as I could

give them the space to be able to do that

and let them know that I'm okay, I'm doing okay myself

you don't have to just think about me

you need to obviously think about yourself

and how this has affected you

because it doesn't just affect me

and everyone else is fine

it affected everyone around me

but they still made the effort to push through that fact

and help

so I think it was more just my way of giving back

and kind of like making sure that

I wasn't just sort of taking all this help in

but without trying to give a bit of help back

even if it wasn't necessarily advice

but just kind of giving them the mental space

just by saying like I'm okay

like you don't have to worry about me

to level you are right now

just take a bit of time and look after yourself a bit

as an athlete, someone that gets stuck in

gritted teeth a lot

do you get really frustrated with people being overly

soft and all can I help you, can I do this

can I do that, do all of you learn to just absorb it

or does it really hurt you

definitely asked my accent, I remember

my mum like wanting when I was in a wheelchair

to like push me around everywhere

and me being like I've got this, I've got this

and like just wanting to do it all myself

and I think it was important

in a way that I did do that

because it showed that I could still be independent

or that I still wanted that independence

because I think if I'd sort of let them sort of

do everything for me

then maybe they would have just assumed

that that's the role they had to play for the rest of my life

so I think it was important in a way that I just kind of like

took ownership of the situation

and tried to do as much as possible without

people's help and support

but I think over time

you have to learn to sort of

like allow other people around you

to help you when you need it as well

so it's a bit of a balancing act

I think it was important in that moment

but I think over time I've sort of realised that

you know I can't do everything

that I need to do in my life

like myself like you need to have the ability

to sort of delegate and to trust people

to you know be able to help you out

if they've got the skill set to do that

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can you take me up to the

point of having that moment

in terms of racing because you mentioned something

that annoyingly

I know so many people overlook the things

before that moment

that must really frustrate you

so just tell us about it, tell us how you got

in that seat at that moment

on that particular grid, the things you'd won

and how you got there because I know that

I've spoken to Karun Chan on the podcast

I've spoken to how difficult

self-funded racing is and getting to that point

so talk us through it

yeah it's massive in motorsport

I mean my family are working class

like when we started

it was just something for me

my dad to do for fun

and my dad just loved like tinking around with cars

and their go-karts and stuff like that

and then quite quickly by the time I was probably

like 10-11 winning British championships

it was like not only did I start to view it

as something different but in general

the more money is involved

in the sport at that time

and it does become more serious

like we still had a lot of fun

don't get me wrong but it's like

this isn't just something that we can kind of

do and not really

put much effort into if we're going to continue

on the rate of development

that we're going on and with the amount of resources

that are going to be need to pour into it

like you have to want to do it

and really want to give your all

so that was kind of

it was tricky in ways because

there's a lot of responsibility for a kid

to basically at that point

you're kind of in the

headspace of I need to be all in on this

or not and you know I was sort of making

that decision at like 12-13 of

do I want to make this my career go

all in or do I want to

be a kid and sort of you know just kind

of be like trying lots

of other things and not be so like

focused on one thing but for me

I didn't want anything else I hadn't tried

I tried lots of other sports when I was younger

and stuff like that and nothing had come close

to motor sport for me so

I just wanted to keep doing that

thing that I loved so much

Which is strange really because now you have the

complete opposite right? Yeah.

You're open to pretty much all sports so it shows

that there is like change before and after

Yeah I think

racing for me like my relationship

with racing

and like Covid as a sort of

period of time that kind of

was the thing more than anything that sort of halted

my racing career because I obviously went back to

racing after my accident and

effectively at that point you know the

sort of figures we're talking about

you know humongous like you know over half

a million pounds a year for a season and

the championships I was racing in and

to sort of fund that

sort of through sponsorship alone

and then when Covid came about that sponsorship

to disappear to then

re-find that sort of money

was basically where the

stumbling blocks came in

which is a shame

and obviously

you know like most people that

you know don't quite achieve

their ultimate ambitions like there's always

going to be probably part of me and it goes

oh like I wonder

whether I did have the opportunity to keep going

whether I would have been able to make it

to F1 but

equally then these new opportunities

and other avenues of my life

sort of opened up whether that's in the media

space whether that's

these comic relief charity

sort of challenges and then

obviously the Iron Man world record

and bits and pieces and these other sports

I think it kind of

taught me to be open to

you know one door closes that doesn't

mean that that's your only door and you can't

go through another so probably it taught

my accident taught me to be quite adaptable

I guess you could say.

When the door in your head closed

for Formula One which one

open what was the next Formula One was it

the Iron Man?

Probably say at the time because we're talking sort of

Covid time I was still

like my main sort of job and

career path at the time was then in the media

space in Formula One so I was presenting

and sort of being a pundit on the Channel 4

show

and I was getting asked back for more

and more races each year

so at the time it kind of felt like

okay well I've sort of this keeps

me in motorsport

and even though at the time I wasn't

racing myself

it wasn't that I necessarily closed the door on

Formula One but it felt like okay well I

haven't got the money to race right now so what's

the next best thing it's being involved

in the sport and it's being in the F1

paddock where all of the big bosses

and all of the people that make the decisions

realistically on the people that make it

into Formula One themselves

that's where they are and so I still

felt like I was front and centre

and in people's minds so I thought

if I'm going to get any opportunities

with not having the money to actually be

driving myself it's going to be by

impressing and being around

those sorts of people where they think

Billy was on a good trajectory

and okay it stops but

maybe he's worth taking a punt with

a new sort of racing program we're developing

How does that

actually visually look

in the paddock?

To say you're there, you're doing your work

you're being a pundit over the course of the weekend

are you looking out for those individuals that

make comments like Toto did of

you have a moment in your earliest years

that defines you and you either get through

it or you don't, are you looking out to be like

have you got time for a coffee?

How do you still try to materialise that

into something in an environment like the paddock?

Yeah I think for me

when I got into the paddock in the media

since it was 2019 so I was

19, 20 years old.

Then you had to put masks on.

Yeah me had to put masks on social distancing

so those few years it kind of did feel

like not wasted years

from that sort of

we couldn't really communicate to

I couldn't go and grab a coffee

with a Toto wolf or something like that so easily

because everyone was kind of social distancing

and everything like that so it was trickier

in those moments

more than anything rather than

actively seeking out every individual

in the paddock because everyone there

has got jobs to do, they've got busy schedules

I think it was more

just being in those places and then

if those conversations did start

you did see those individuals

just

being a person, a likeable person

expressing my dreams

my ambitions, my goals

but not doing it in a forceful way

I think you sometimes see people come into the paddock

and they basically

you can tell that they're just after one thing

and what they're just going to have on those individuals

Do they stand out as well?

I think

there's so many successful people in that paddock

and don't get me wrong I don't think it's

necessarily, maybe that approach

is the way to go

but for me I've always been of

the opinion that I'm fundamentally

the first thing, I was there to do a job

so I'm there to be a presenter

and a ponder and if I do that

well enough people will

grow to see me on a more regular

basis and I'll be

in sort of that ecosystem

I'll be integrated into it

so then those conversations are easier to have

Because I'm writing and saying

is Anthony Davison now

a reserve?

Yeah, he's been working with Mercedes

for a long time in the

sim sort of side of things

like doing all their development and bits and pieces

that's something that he sort of naturally

progressed into off the back

of his sort of endurance career coming to an end

with all the years of experience he had

so he juggles the two

he has involvement with Mercedes

in the simulator and development programs

but also he's a pundit for

SkyF1 so

it kind of goes to show

that you can end up with multiple

roles within the sport

whilst you know

doing multiple things at the same time

so that was I guess my ambition and my thoughts

with it was if I'm here long enough

and I'm really part of the ecosystem of Formula One

and I get to know these people

then one conversation

could lead to another

one phone call

why don't we speak to this person

in terms of the sponsorship

in terms of opportunity for a seat

and who knows what could come from it

so that's kind of been my approach

with it. How did you get

onto the grid to present for the first time

in a pundit role?

What was the phone call for that and when was it?

Yeah it was a

a random sort of call up

to be honest because

it came from a producer

who worked in Formula One

basically watching me on the BBC Sports

Personality of the Year back in 2018

so I won the Helen Rollison Award

and I had to go up and do a speech

it was like a live show

in front of thousands of people

and I delivered half my speech and I took a pause

and took too long of a pause

and got cut off by the presenters

like they just thought

that was the end of my speech and sort of moved on

and people at home basically could see

that I had more to say but I was just

you know sort of taking a brief moment

and it's live TV

so that sort of stuff happens

and next thing you know

they were like half way through the show

like after a few more things had happened

they were like oh we're going to come back to you

and let you finish your speech if you'd like

because we could see and we've had people at home

saying that they thought you had more to say

so they came back to me

I finished my speech and basically based off that

speech and sort of my sort of communication

and sort of involvement in my sport

one of the producers thought that

I potentially he could be a good fit

on screen and

like that Formula One world

he loves the sport, he knows a lot about it

and he seemed to do a

part from getting cut off a pretty decent job of his speech

so they approached me

and asked me if I wanted to be part of Channel 4's

F1 coverage and I said no

initially

because I was so focused on

racing and driving myself around

in their rear that I thought

well you know I don't want people to

sort of have any confusion that I

want to be in Formula One myself

I don't necessarily want to be

a presenter of Formula One

but I wanted to be the driver

so at first I was pretty cautious

about basically blurring those lines a little bit

but then I spoke to my family

friends and sort of like the team around me

and they sort of

made me realise that

actually okay you are racing right now

and sponsorship is there but that's no

guarantee that it will always be there

and actually being again in those

environments in front of the people that

you know potentially can offer you

sponsorship deals, make you part of their

academy and really help you get

those last few steps from Formula

3 into the

Formula 3 that runs on the F1 weekends and then

Formula 2 into Formula 1

like you need those individuals on board

so they kind of said

and explained it to me in that way and I kind of thought

okay yeah I can balance that too

Individuals, good ones are often

good with pieces of advice as well

and I know an individual that I could mention

so many because you've had so many amazing

cool moments of people that supported you

Lewis Hamilton for one, name drop

but I really really connected

with the story of Johnny Herbert

and how he come to visit you

can you just tell that a little bit

Yeah, Johnny is an amazing character

an amazing guy and

he obviously had a big accident

in racing himself at Brandtatch, he had an accident

ended up crashing

like his car or being involved

in an accident and basically really

badly damaged his ankles

and his feet to the point where

he wasn't sure that amputation

would have potentially been something

that was talked about with him

he obviously didn't

end up having his legs and

feet amputated and was able to

go through a recovery process and then get back

to racing in Formula 1 but

he basically still

at some points in time

has pain in his feet

and ankles as a result

of that accident and how severe it was

even all these years later

so yeah for whatever

reason Johnny decided because of my accident

and me having my legs amputated

maybe it resonated with him but

he basically asked me to come and see me in hospital

so he was one of the first people to come and see me

and yeah seeing Johnny Herbert

Formula 1 Grand Prix winner

to basically come and

say hello and sort of give his time

like honestly it really did

mean a lot

and yeah

like I said I felt the support

of the homemade sport community but

definitely that moment will stick with me

Did he tell you there and then to get back in a car

as fast as possible?

No he didn't actually no he didn't really

give any advice in terms of getting back into a car

when he saw me I was like

at such an early stage that I was in hospital

for about five weeks

and I can't remember how early on it was

but it was definitely within probably the first week

or two that Johnny came to see me so

effectively it was more a process of

like just getting

getting good

getting back to

being able to sort of

digest a bit of what had actually happened to me

so it was still really early stages

so he was more there for some moral support

to sort of cheer me up

like to just come and sort of

spend some time with me and my family and just

be there for me

rather than try and give me

loads of advice

and that kind of

in a way probably meant more

because at that stage I probably wasn't ready

for that much advice

or I was like oh you should get back in a car

it was kind of like I just wanted and needed

people that had

my best interests at heart to kind of just

be around me and be like

you've got this mate you'll be okay

like this happened to me

I still able to do all these

things that I'm sure you will be able to too

For the people that

look at the crashes oh we had a very high

speed crash but don't necessarily know

the detail of it because you're in a

Formula 4 car and

some people go Formula car like they don't think

about the different classes and how they're put

together and how they're built

if that were in an F1 car

would there have been any differences of result

like in terms of the way they're engineered

good question

I think it's

in my hypotheticals

I don't really know obviously because

I was in Formula 1 I've been

potentially driving

I would have been even faster

so I had the impact to hit a stationary car

when I was doing 120 if I was driving an F1

I would have been doing 160

The reason I asked sorry to throw is because

I was up on my kitchen counter

my iPad being rushed out the door

a few years ago

when Grojan hit the barrier

and I just remember just going there's no way

like everybody

there's no way and then you see him getting out

just kind of doing that

he's got some hot hands you must be like

how was he managed to do that

that's why I asked because

it seems to me that these F1 cars

can just get away with so much

maybe some of the others and are the others

up to speed to where they should be

I think fundamentally the way motorcycle works

is that Formula 1 is the pioneer

when it comes to all sorts of technologies

whether that's the performance

based technologies whether that's for

safety based technologies

and then it sort of

drips slowly down into the junior

categories and gets implemented

like the Halo for example that was a Formula 1

introduction and then quite quickly in the next few years

that got spread into all the junior

single seater classes

so it gets tested out at the highest level

at Formula 1 and if Formula 1

can withstand and benefit a Formula 1 car

then they think okay well then

obviously it can benefit Formula 2

Formula 3, Formula 4

so I think you'd probably

say that Formula 1 is safer

than any other sort of

single seater championship in the world

from that aspect but

once all those once all that technology

is sort of drip fed down into

Formula 3, Formula 2, Formula 1

or yeah Formula 2, 3 and 4

sorry

at that point

realistically I think probably you'd say the slower categories

which are Formula 4, 3 and 2

are potentially safer than Formula 1

because there's less risk attached bridge not going as fast

so it's all hypothetical really

but yeah Formula 1 pioneers

and sort of advances those technologies

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but you were going quick

120 miles an hour

can you take us through the last

thing that you potentially remember

to then yeah the next memory

yeah so the last thing I remember is basically

driving up the crest of a hill

at Dunnington Park with two cars

side by side in front of me

last minute they both dive either side

and I'm presented with this stationery car

and I hit the back of this stationery car

and I was awake for about

45 minutes in the cockpit

before I was put into an induced coma

so I sort of remember everything

sort of coming to a pause

I remember the driver that I hit

he was sort of screaming in the cockpit

so then the doctors initially came over to me

the adrenaline's like so much

that I basically said I'm fine

like go and look after him

I was almost ready to undo my belts

jump out obviously

that wasn't the case

and sort of the adrenaline starts to wear

off obviously your body like

subconsciously like I obviously didn't try

to get out of the car so you kind of

like okay so I'm not

quite sure what's going on there like

my legs were sort of like more

sort of bent up towards me

a little bit I guess you could say but this

single seat car has got a really tight cockpit

around your sort of like

you can't really see below your sort of fire

area because it's all quite snug

and narrow and you're sort of quite in

position of how you drive and then with

overalls on and overalls and everything

like that so I couldn't really see

what was going on

down like down below so it's not like

I looked down and I saw

lard or whatever like I didn't

have that sort of experience I kind of just

looked down couldn't really see that much

but my right knee was sort of

more bent up towards my chest

so I was like okay you know like

there's obviously been a frontal impact but

I didn't really tell

how bad it was and then

adrenaline starts to wear off I start

to sort of be a little bit more uncomfortable

a bit more agitated but quite quickly the doctors

doctors were there paying

medication and then obviously trying to

work out how to extract me out of the car

and how did they manage

to do that so effectively that's why

one of the reasons why anyway that

they had to put me into the induced coma

so my car because I'd hit a stationary

car at 120 had basically

the gearbox of

the car in front had basically penetrated

the front of the cockpit

and effectively my car

had sort of gone into

the gearbox and engine

and sort of part of the car which is where the damage

sort of crept into obviously

my legs was the fact that that had come

into the cockpit so

in terms of getting me out the car

they at first

they were trying to cut the carbon fiber sort of

down like above my legs

trying to cut that panel out

but the carbon fiber is so strong in itself

that the tools that they had basically meant

that trying to cut away the carbon

fiber and everything like that especially when they couldn't

quite see where my legs were positioned so they

didn't want to cut through and do any damage

to me. There's little things like that

that does actually genuinely make your question

like they don't have the tools to cut through

carbon fiber you know on a

race day with cars that

clearly could crash into each other

some things do make you think about

everything in depth you think there's all these

ambulances and safety people that are like

your safety nets around you but

you really are on your own when it comes to being in a

racing car. Yeah I think

yeah I don't think they ever

can potentially anticipate

for what they may need

what they may need I think more

it wasn't necessarily I couldn't cut

through the carbon fiber it was that

they didn't know quite where my legs were

positioned under it so they didn't want to cut

through and actually do more damage sort

of thing so they basically realized

that the only way to get me out of the car was to

effectively pull the cars apart so take

like the car in front

of mine and sort of drag that forward

and out of my car

but they were worried about the risks attached

to it for me to still be obviously awake

for that because they didn't again they

couldn't see the extent of damage so

that's why they decided I believe

to put me into the induced coma so they could

then pull the cars apart and then

extract me out through the top

of the cockpit. And were your

parents at the track that day? Yeah

mum and dad were at the track and my sister

Bonnie was there as well so

they asked if anyone wanted

to come on to the track

just after the accident to sort of be with

me and my mum was obviously a bit

she was very distraught and sort of

like shocked about the whole thing

so my dad decided he was

going to sort of stay with her

when they first heard

from the doctors about what was going on

they sort of the doctors initially said they thought

I'd broken both my legs so that was the

sort of information they had so

my sister decided to come out in the medical

car to the

incident and she sort of sat next to the

cockpit with me and sort of

like was just saying it was going to be okay

and this that and the other and then they put

me into the coma, extracted me

and then my sister joined my mum and dad and

they basically got in the car and

basically dashed it to

the local hospital where I was going

and what about the lad in front

of you? Who was he and

what happened? Yeah so he was Patrick

Pazma so he's a Finnish driver

and

he went into hospital as well I believe he

had fractured a vertebrae

so it was

something that fortunately for him

held up you know within probably

a few weeks to a month

so he was back racing

I believe he might

have had one weekend off from the

racing and then he was back for the

fourth round of the championship so

again it was just one of those wrong

place wrong time moments where yeah he

obviously didn't intentionally spin off

and end up on the racing line

you know so

for him it was just he'd made a mistake

at a tricky part of the circuit and I

arrived behind him with

no vision that he was there

wrong place wrong time

one of the

parts of unpacking people's heads on this

podcast is like unpacking mental

strength yeah it's without mental strength

you haven't been able to do so many of the

things that you've done yeah was

the toughest piece of mental strength

the moment you woke up

um

good question

I'm not sure not sure I think

it definitely required a lot of mental strength

and it was definitely a shock and probably

for a while

I was sort of going through the motions

of you know going you know

being in hospital

and then sort of coming out of hospital

going home and sort of you know

my dad had sort of converted the house

so they're downstairs I could sort of

my bedroom was down downstairs and upstairs

and he'd put some ramps in here and there

so

the whole first few months really

was a bit of a blur like the whole thing

and they definitely were highs and lows

and times where I was a bit like why me

and times where I was kind of

like right I need to just get on with this

so I think it would be hard for me to say

that that wasn't the moment

probably that required the most mental

strength what was the first

big like lift the trophy up moment

afterwards though like the next the next

peak next peak

probably lifting

a trophy up at Alton Park for

my first race back that was 11

months after my accident

and

yeah maybe that all

potentially the time I first got back

behind the wheel of a proper single-seater racing car

because at that point

I'd sort of started to work with

Carl and the team that were sort of

helping me get back into racing

they'd sort of started

initially just letting me use their simulator

because I would come to the factory with my

mate Jamie who was racing for them in

British F4 for that

that season he won the championship that year

so I was more just to get me out the house

when I was doing my rehab I'd go

with him to the factory watch him on the sim

then they came a lot then they basically

said I want to get on the simulator yourself

and we'll just convert

the two gear like paddles

into a throttle and brake and you could just try

and that was like fine

and it was actually a lot faster

I think that everyone was expecting even with these

sort of like botched up paddles

and then it became okay

well why don't we actually make some hand controls

and then my leg had started to heal

enough where I could start to

push against the brake pedal a bit more

and quite quickly like within

a space of like four or five bumps

it was like okay you can drive on the simulator

we've made some sort of like

basic controls and you're fast

like if you want to race again

we need to obviously think about

the next set which is like putting this into a

practical real life

version of these controls so they started

building me some hand controls for a car

talking with the FIA which is the

governing body about all their sort of

safety measures and concerns

and I think it was

I want to say it was

in the January of 2018

when my accident was April 2017

that I've got back behind the wheel

of a single seat car again

and I remember that day just being like

smiling ear to ear

like it was just like

it just felt like a surreal moment

and just have like my mum and dad there

and they were just like

what were they like?

Mum was a nervous wreck

dad was chuffed I think he could see how

happy I was and he could see me back in

a racing car and I think at that point

you know they've start to believe that

this is like possible

here we go again

yeah here we go again

which I think my dad was

pleased about my mum probably less

Up until that moment

what was the toughest thing that

happened in your life?

Good question

I think

a lot of people ask me like

where my resilience comes from

I think it's mainly

probably from my mum and dad

because I saw how hard they worked

for years and years to basically give me

the opportunities that I had

even to get me to F4 took so much

sacrifice so many long hours

they're the two most hardworking

people I've ever met like

my mum's a makeup artist and she's

in the film industry

they're basically the first one there

the first ones there and the last ones to leave

and she would be leaving home at

five in the morning and getting back at

8.39pm and basically going straight

to bed and

like just seeing that sort of work ethic

I think sort of then

when I did get opportunities to do stuff

I knew that I had to try to make

the most of it because there was so much

sacrifice going in and I think

just being sort of in

that multiple world from a young age like

you naturally

sort of craft a bit of resilience

like because

like you have to make sacrifices along

the way you have to decide to

you know to train or to

practice or you have to do your homework

in the back of your camper van

when you're driving to a race so that you can take

the time off school so you can compete at the highest level

I think like they're rather than like

one big you know moment

that made me sort of like

resilient or sort of mentally strong

it was more like a bit of a culmination

of lots of sort of

factors of you know

environment with seeing my parents working

so hard and then just the

world and the sort of dream that I had

and just chipping away down a day to day

basis that kind of

gave me enough mental strength

when the time came to deal with

a big moment like that

When you've set world records

when you've done the impossible

what is next? What's the next bit

that gets the fuel going?

Yeah I think

I think I never want to be the person

who when I'm on

sort of when I'm a bit older and later in

life it has loads of regrets

I think if I hadn't done anything after my accident

I knew what my life was going to look like

I knew that I would probably be full of regret of

and asking those what if

questions so I

don't want to leave sort of any stone unturned

and be asking I don't want to

even give myself the capacity to go

what if this, what if that when I'm older

It was scary getting back

in a racing car but looking back

it was so much scarier if you did

Yeah exactly that

if I hadn't got back to racing I think

potentially that is

just mentally a really

daunting prospect because my passions

in my life would have felt really

snatched away from me I at least wanted to try

and I think that's kind of

basically been my mindset since my accident

with most of the things that I've done

at least if you are going to do something

give it your best effort

if it's not meant for you if it's not meant to be

it's not meant to be but I'd rather be the person

who tries and gets

the answers that they're looking for

and knows that that is the actual

that is the answer you're always going to get

because you know this you've done

your absolute most rather than

be the person who gets an answer

but actually hasn't tried so

they really don't know how much they can even

believe in the answer they've got

well Billy

I know we're under a little bit of time pressure for you

watching today there's a few other things going on

in crazy London here thank you so

much for your time it's been amazing to

just scratch the surface level of the stuff

that goes on inside your head and how

you've turned such an impactful

horrific incident into something

so incredibly

imaginably amazing

thank you Billy thank you so much for coming on

Road to Success and for everybody watching

and listening we'll see you in another one

next time

Billy Monger Reveals How He Races After Loosing His Legs

About this episode

cockpit

induced coma

Formula 1

steering wheel

throttle

racing driver

go-karting

double amputee

race car

crash

motor racing

IndyCar

hand controls

Team Brit

hand clutch

simulator

oversteer

Lewis Hamilton

podium

the accident

Hera

motor sport

Covid

Formula One

F1 paddock

Johnny Herbert

amputated

Formula 4

mental strength

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