JULY 19, 2005

Enge recovering from injury

Former Grand Prix driver Tomas Enge is resting at home in Indianapolis after fracturing two vertebrae in a heavy accident last weekend at the Nashville Speedway when his Panther Racing IRL car suffered a suspension failure and crashed into the wall backwards at high speed.

"I was just a passenger," Enge said. "It was a rear suspension failure, but we have not found which exact part of the rear suspension collapsed yet. The impact was really heavy and I immediately felt some pain."

Following the accident, Enge was examined at the infield medical center and then transported by ambulance to University Medical Center, in Lebanon, Tennessee, for further tests.

It is expected that the Czech driver will be out of action for at least three weeks and probably longer.

"If it was my decision I would go back to racing now," said Enge. "We were very quick in the last races, and we are hungry for success."

Enge tested for Jordan in 1999 and was named test driver for the team in 2000. He made his F1 debut in 2001 with Prost Grand Prix, after Luciano Burti was sidelined after a huge crash at Spa. At the end of the year he was dropped by Prost and so returned to Formula 3000 with the Arden team and was the dominant force in the series in 2002 although he lost on the title when he failed a drugs test after the Hungarian GP event. He struggled to revive his career but finished fourth in the Formula 3000 series in 2004 before heading off to America.