Injured Alex talks comeback
LITTLE more than a week after a high-speed crash in Italy, Tasmanian teenage Formula 3 racer Alex Peroni is home and turning his mind to a return to motorsport.
Peroni, 19, arrived in Hobart yesterday sore and sorry after sustaining a fractured vertebra in his back and concussion in the airborne accident at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
His car was flung into the air before flipping and landing upside down on a safety wall. Peroni was extracted from the car and taken to hospital.
“I’m very lucky to be walking. I’m just excited to be in the car as soon as possible,’’ he said at Hobart Airport.
“I’m very happy to be home obviously. It’s a pretty bad way to end the season to have that crash, but I’m just looking as far ahead as I can.”
Peroni, of Tranmere, said he had no memory of the outof-control incident.
“I was knocked out during the crash so I don’t remember it and that’s why I guess I’m not that traumatised by [watching] it,’’ he said.
Peroni, who is wearing a back brace, has been ordered to spend the next 30-40 days predominantly lying down to take the weight off his spine and enable it to heal.
His father, Piero, was at the track when the crash happened.
“I wouldn’t wish it on any parent. It’s a terrible feeling,’’ he said.
Mr Peroni said it was lucky his son’s injuries were not more serious.
“That’s an enormously fast corner, well over 200km/h,’’ he said.
“It’s hard for people to realise how high he was. He was probably two storeys up in the air and to come flying down and hit the tyre barrier at that speed upside down is enormous.”
Mr Peroni said he had become accustomed to watching his son compete in a high-risk sport.
“This sport is very dangerous, but equally there are very strict safety features,’’ he said.
“Alex has been racing since he was seven and he was tiny. In life you have to do what you’re passionate about and Alex is extremely passionate about motorsport.”
Mr Peroni said his son was “more determined than before” to come back.
“I have no doubt he’ll want to get into a car immediately, and it will be a challenge for us to hold him back,’’ he said.