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Home / Sport

Motorsport: Sophia Floersch returns to Formula 3 after horror crash at Macau Grand Prix

NZ Herald
6 Mar, 2019 05:28 PM2 mins to read

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Formula 3 pilot Sophia Floersch smiles in the garage after driving for a Van Amersfroot Racing team test car at the Monza racetrack, northern Italy. Photo / AP

Formula 3 pilot Sophia Floersch smiles in the garage after driving for a Van Amersfroot Racing team test car at the Monza racetrack, northern Italy. Photo / AP

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Just over 100 days ago, racing driver Sophia Floersch broke bones in her back and neck in a high speed crash.

Today, she returned to the track.

After three months of fighting back to full fitness, the German driver returned at Monza for a two-day test in her Formula 3 car for her Van Amersfoort Racing team.

The 18-year-old became an internet sensation when video of her car flying backwards in the air went viral. During the Macau Grand Prix, she clipped another car, hit a kerb and was sent backwards into the fencing. Doctors said a bone splinter was just millimetres from causing serious damage to her spinal cord which would have likely paralysed her.

Speaking to the Times, Floersch said she didn't want the crash to define her and she already considered it to be ancient history.

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"I don't watch the crash now unless media people show it to me," she said. "It feels like it was three years ago. It is strange."

"The flying stuff felt very different," she told The Times. "You don't think, 'Oh s***, I'm 270 [kmh] now'. You just wait for the wall to come."

Formula 3 pilot Sophia Floersch leaves the garage after for a Van Amersfroot Racing team test car at the Monza racetrack, northern Italy. Photo / AP
Formula 3 pilot Sophia Floersch leaves the garage after for a Van Amersfroot Racing team test car at the Monza racetrack, northern Italy. Photo / AP

Floersch had no doubt she wanted to return to the sport once given the all clear by doctors, and said when she does watch the footage of her crash, she's able to separate herself from it.

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"If I watch it now it does not feel like me crashing. I watch and think, 'This guy is not going to survive'."

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