Billy Monger’s road to victory has been an impressive and inspirational one. In April of 2017, Monger lost both of his legs colliding with a stationary car during the 6th round of the British Formula 4 championship. With a never-say-can’t attitude, he was back to racing within 10 months, using a specially modified car fitted with hand controls. This year, Monger switched to international open wheel racing, joining the Euroformula Open grid, and this weekend brought home the hardware with a rainy win at the Pau Grand Prix.
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Monger had qualified 11th for the race weekend’s second round, but peeled off into the pits to get his car fitted with rain tires on the formation lap as the ground had started to become moist. He knew he had to take a gamble to make anything happen in this race. Betting on more rain coming, he rejoined at the back of the pack with only a few others betting on wet tires behind him.
As the race went to green, Monger was like a man possessed, running through the field like they were stationary. Other drivers that had pitted with him on the formation lap didn’t have nearly the speed or conviction to make the kinds of moves and progress through the field as Monger had.
At lap 14, Billy was sitting in third place and closing on Motopark teammates Julian Hansas and Liam Lawson, both still on slicks. Lawson made a move on Hansas for the lead, and it didn’t stick, pushing them both off. That was the half-distance mark of the race, and Monger moved up into the lead as the safety car came out to pace the field.
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Getting away cleanly as the field came back to green, Monger briefly had to hold off Carlin Racing teammate Nicolai Kjaergaard, but eked out a lead of over a second as the race came to the checkered flag.
There’s no word out of Pau as to whether or not Billy did another “leggy,” but in our minds he definitely did.
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