Louis Sharp on Melbourne recovery, extra motivation and comeback with PREMA

“When they say you have a broken back, it probably sounds worse than it actually is. I broke three vertebrae in my back, so I'm really lucky. I think it could have been a lot worse,”

Louis Sharp’s 2026 campaign did not get off to the start he imagined during pre-season but the PREMA Racing driver says his recovery has been as unproblematic as he could have asked for.

The New Zealander sat out the Feature Race on medical grounds and has been rehabbing his injuries in the time since.

Reflecting on what happened and his recovery process, Sharp says he feels back to full fitness and is eager to get going once more.

“I think it was T11, T12 and L1 - thankfully, no surgery was required. Just needed time to heal really.

“So I think it sounds a lot worse than it probably actually is. The fractures weren't that bad, it wasn't too serious and obviously no damage to my spinal cord, which was obviously a big positive.

“The whole recovery process has been really easy, I'm pretty much back to full health. The whole time I have been pretty much pain free. Even the following days after the crash, the pain was never really that bad.

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“I've always been able to walk, and it's never really been that big of a deal.”

Sharp says that the process of recovery has been a relatively straightforward one, with visits to specialists in the aftermath and subsequent physio sessions part of the plan.

He added that while he is eager to get back to the normality of racing, he hasn’t rushed anything and that he is ready to go when the right moment arrives.

“I've seen a few specialists and a physio as well, but on my side, I'm doing everything I can to make sure I treat the injuries properly.

“As I said, although they haven't changed me too much, it sounds a lot worse than it is, you still don't want to do anything to make things worse.

“So it’s just been about taking the proper time to recover and to heal and doing the proper physio required to rehabilitate the back, which I have done until now and it's paid off really well.

“Now, I’m at the point where I'm pretty much fully back into my training, back in the gym, back out running, back cycling, doing pretty much everything I could do before, minus a few things. So I think for the next couple of weeks until Monaco, there's probably a little bit more that I need to do, but by the time it comes around, I'm going to be 100% ready.”

Though it was a disappointment to not race in the first Feature Race of the 2026 season, Sharp says that he has been able to see the positives of the race weekend up until his crash.

The PREMA driver was happy with the team’s pace up to that point, and believes it will bode well for the upcoming rounds as the season gets back underway for the European phase.

“We were super-fast in the Sprint Race, the fastest car on track at the time of the crash coming through the pack.

“Obviously, I think in qualifying, there's a few things that myself and a few things we as a team could have maybe done a little bit better, but the race pace was really strong.

“It was a really good sign, and although it didn't result in anything in the end, it was nice to at least know that the pace is there. So in that respect, there are definitely positives we can take from that.”

With his physical preparations beginning to get back to pre-Melbourne levels, attentions will soon turn to race prep with the PREMA team at their base.

Sharp says that having been sidelined in Melbourne, there’s extra motivation to get back behind the wheel and produce results he believes they are capable of in 2026.

“I’ll probably get back over to Italy in the next couple of weeks to do some sim with the team.

“We’ll be getting focused to get back into gear and ready for the races coming up. So I think now is the time to be able to really lock back in.

“I've obviously in the last couple of weeks resting to recover, but now is the time to start to get an even stronger focus and be prepared as possible to make up for it.

“I’d say there’s definitely extra motivation. It's all fuel to the fire. So I think these last few weeks I've really been working as hard as I ever have to get healthy and to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again, that we come back stronger than we were before the incident.

"I'm definitely using it as extra motivation to go out there and achieve what I know is possible.”