Macau Grand Prix | Severe crash won’t stop Flörsch from coming back

Seventeen-year-old racing driver Sophia Flörsch says that her severe crash during the Macau Grand Prix weekend won’t stop her from coming back next year.

Flörsch’s single-seater collided at high speed with Japanese driver Sho Tsuboi’s car in the final hours of the Grand Prix event, tearing through a catch fence at the Lisboa bend and injuring several people. The accident left the young F3 driver with spinal fractures that warranted a seven-hour surgery and extended stay at the Conde de São Januário General Hospital.

Having made a partial recovery, Flörsch made her first public appearance yesterday since the November 18 crash. She was due to fly back home last night.

At a press conference held at the public hospital, specialist physicians said that it might take the young driver as long as 12 months to completely recover from the accident. However, they said Flörsch has already shown a significant improvement and is able to walk without assistance.

“Sophia Flörsch has made a significant recovery after a successful surgery carried out by our professional medical team in Macau,” said Dr Chan Hong Mou, a consultant orthopedist at the Conde de São Januário General Hospital. “She will head home later today.”

Dr Lau Wai Lit, the chief of the public hospital’s orthopaedics department, said that “it may take months for Sophia [Flörsch] to make a full recovery, but for now she has been recovering really well. She can make a full recovery within a year.”

Speaking through a translator, Lau said that it would be fine for her to return to motorsports in due time, but whether she is able to move to a higher level of motorsports competition “will be her own decision.”

Flörsch, interrupted by multiple rounds of applause, expressed her gratitude for the care and treatment she received at the public hospital.

“My surgeons have done a great job working on my back and my hip,” she said. “I am thankful for being here and having a good recovery. I’m walking already.”

The racing driver also thanked the Macau Grand Prix Organizing Committee and contested the idea that the Guia Circuit turns presented a safety hazard.

“I don’t think so. I think it was just unlucky. Of course there is now a lot of talk about ‘sausage’ curbs, but this [kind of] crash happens once and never again.”

“It was my first-ever big crash and it took me a little while to get over. But I’m over it now and a new chapter is starting. I will be back racing and chasing my dream,” she added.

Despite the crash and her week-long stay at the public hospital, Flörsch was generally upbeat about her performance in the competition.

“To be honest, Macau was great,” she told reporters. “Although I had a bad crash, I think that I have had a lot of good and bad luck. […] I think I had a quite good weekend actually. I think I had quite a good pace for a rookie.”

“It’s my first season in F3 and I really wanted to go to Macau because Macau is such an historic race. The race, the city, the people; it is all so special,” she continued. “For racing car drivers, it’s really a dream.”

“If possible, I will for sure come back for the 66th [Macau] Grand Prix.”

The director of the Macau Government Tourism Office, Helena de Senna Fernandes, was also present at the press conference to present the teenage F3 racer with a certificate that reads, “We hereby appoint Ms. Sophia Flörsch as Goodwill Ambassador”.