Why Correa's return is the feel-good story racing needed
Juan Manuel Correa has had a long road to recovery from that horrific day at Spa in 2019. ART's decision to give him his race return in FIA Formula 3 in 2021 is a victory in itself, but his determination will surely - in time - have him fighting for bigger things
Motorsport has been long overdue a feel-good story amid a tough 2020, and junior series veteran team ART has duly delivered. The French squad has handed a return to racing for Juan Manuel Correa in FIA Formula 3, after a season and a half out of action - a legacy of the horrendous Spa-Francorchamps Formula 2 feature race accident in 2019 that took Anthoine Hubert's life.
The incident at Eau Rouge does not bear thinking about, even after time has created some semblance of distance to it, and Hubert's death and Correa's critical state rocked the motorsporting fraternity to the core. The American's subsequent recuperation to walk again, then, has been nothing short of miraculous.
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Jake Boxall-Legge Autosport’s Technical Editor. Having studied Automotive Engineering with Motorsport at the University of Hertfordshire, West Country-born Jake's original ambition was to design racing cars. During a year between studies in which he accidentally rekindled a love of writing, he took up a Master's in Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes. Halfway through his master's year, he was offered a place on the Autosport Academy, conducting occasional freelance duties before becoming the press officer for Formula 2 and GP3 in 2018. Autosport offered him a return to the fold later that year to serve as its Technical Editor. His voice appears on a number of videos and podcasts, and can often be found writing about terrible Formula 1 cars in excruciating detail. In his spare time, Jake enjoys baking and blames his failure to make it past the Great British Bake-Off interviews on his tenuous grasp on choux pastry. His dream is to open a brunch cafe - and his willingness to make outrageous puns in inappropriate situations has earned him the contempt of his colleagues.
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