Roman Bilinski sat down with Feeder Series to talk about the accident that derailed his Formula Regional European Championship season, the road to recovery from a broken back and his upcoming campaign in F3. 

By Francesca Brusa

Two rounds into his third season in FR Europe, Roman Bilinski was riding high. The Polish-British driver had freshly collected the FR Oceania championship trophy over the winter, and in Europe, he had taken his maiden series pole and his best race finish yet. 

Then in early June, just before he was set to travel to Zandvoort for FR Europe’s third round, everything came to a screeching halt. 

Bilinski was involved in a road car accident in northwest Italy, near the base of his team, Trident Motorsport. He broke two vertebrae in the incident and underwent an operation that put six screws in his back. The incident limited his ability to walk, let alone drive.

“It was crazy how 10 minutes before you’re living a normal life and 10 minutes later you don’t even know if you can walk again,” he told Feeder Series on reflection.

“I know lots of people say it, but you have to really treasure every moment. Before my accident, life was great. I was in a good place in the championship. I was in a good place for next year. And because of an action of someone else, or it could even be yourself, you can lose everything and you don’t know it’s coming until it happens.”

Prior to the accident, 2024 was shaping up to be Bilinski’s best year yet in single-seaters. He won the FR Oceania crown in February with six race wins, five pole positions, six fastest laps and 12 total podiums from 15 races. The campaign helped him redeem himself after he scored on only five occasions the previous year in Europe.

Bilinski kicked off the FR Europe season at Hockenheim with ninth- and eleventh-place finishes from 17th on the grid in both races, but it was at Spa-Francorchamps that he showed his true colours.

Taking pole position for the first time in a wet qualifying one, Bilinski walked off with a second place in race one. He was classified last in race two after having been forced off the track by another driver.

“I went into the first two weekends off a very good championship, which I won in New Zealand,” he explained. “Hockenheim qualifying was very good until I got blocked in the last corner, which would have put me P2 overall. I was feeling very good. Then Spa, [I had] pole position and a podium. Confidence was high, the car was feeling good, I was feeling good.”

In the wake of his accident, Bilinski had to miss the Zandvoort weekend as well as the following three rounds of the season. For those three rounds, Trident replaced its longest-tenured driver with another FR Europe veteran in Michael Belov, who helped the team to another podium at Paul Ricard. 

“The Trident FRECA team was very helpful to me,” he said. “They were all very supportive and everything, which is very nice of them. I did speak to Belov, who was in my car, and I came to watch a round, which was nice to be back with the team even though I wasn’t driving.”

After three long months of recovery, Bilinski made his comeback in Imola after the summer break. The Trident driver didn’t lose any time and claimed points in both races by finishing ninth and seventh.

“One and a half months before I couldn’t even walk, so I didn’t really know how it would be,” he said. “But I believed in myself. I got back in on the simulator. I performed well. I thought, ‘Look, if it’s going to come down to a bit of pain to perform, I’ve been through a lot more pain in my life than this.’ I thought the speed was still there, so it’s the main thing.”

In the last three rounds of the season, the Trident driver scored points on four occasions. He missed out on the top 10 only twice: in race two in Barcelona, when contact with another car broke his front wing and forced him to retire from the race, and in race two at Monza, when another damaged front wing saw him head back to the pits and a red flag prevented him from climbing back up front.

These results helped Bilinski take 52 points and 14th in the standings, his best championship placement since he entered the series in 2022. For the 20-year-old, the bigger achievement was returning to the race car in the first place after the accident.

“It’s affected me in a positive and a negative way. The negative is I lost a contract that I already signed for next year,” he said. “I lost then many opportunities I did have for the years coming. I also lost the position I was in the championship.

“I’d say the positive side is I think it really showed who I am as a person, to get back in the car. After the accident, they thought they would have to take my leg at one point because I couldn’t even walk. I had no feeling in my leg and everything like this.

“So to then jump back in the car three months later and get double points, I think was very impressive. And every time I’m driving the car, I’m in a lot of pain. So I think it shows that I never give up, and I hope this is a good side that people can see.”

In the end, Bilinski will step up to F3 after all in 2025, making the switch to Rodin Motorsport. He will therefore leave Trident, with whom he has raced since his and the team’s FR debut in 2022. 

“Trident is a family team,” he said. “We’re all very close. The FRECA team especially, to me, is like a family. I know all of them very well now, so we can all joke and have a laugh, but we also work very hard.

“It hasn’t gone how we wanted it to go, that’s for sure. But I think Trident really offers a very warm, welcoming, and also just a nice place to be in general.”

In early October, before his main campaign came to an end, the British-Polish driver participated in the F3 tests in Jerez with Rodin. With the car’s higher performance came extra physical challenges.

“The F3 car was a big step up,” he said. “The brake pressure was really difficult for me because when you use a brake, you’re putting a lot of pressure on your back, and so it was very painful in the F3.

“I think the tests were actually really positive. Of course it’s testing, you can’t really look at what’s going on, but in what I knew and the team knew of me, it actually seemed a very good test, so we were very happy.”

Next year, the British-Polish racer will race as part of the F1 support package. The light he saw throughout his recovery continues to guide him in his movement up the ladder.

“I didn’t lose any belief,” he said. “Formula 1 world champion is still my goal and it’s all I think about every day. Even though this has been a setback and I’ve had a couple tough years, I truly believe in my ability and I just won’t stop believing. And I will give everything until there’s no more to give.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency