María de Villota says she has not decided if she will pursue a racing return in the future, with the Spaniard still recovering from a life-threatening testing crash earlier this year. When driving back to her temporary garage after a straight-line run for Marussia at Duxford, the 32-year-old collided head-on with the loading tray of a lorry.
De Villota was taken to Addenbrooke's Hospital for emergency surgery, but the impact left her with permanent facial damage, including the loss of her right eye.
"I still don't know, it's about a licence," de Villota said during an interview for Spain's Hola magazine, her first since the crash. "There are drivers in the United States who have lost an eye and still have a licence.
"What's true is that you lose the sense of depth, because it's both eyes that give you the perspective. I'm wondering now if my future is as a racing driver or if there's something else I have to do with my life. I still don't know what I need to do."
Looking back at the incident itself, de Villota says she remembers the entire ordeal:
"I remember everything, even the moment of impact," she added. "When I woke up everybody was around me and they didn't even know if I was going to speak.
"I started speaking in English because I thought I was on an FIA check-up and that the nurse was a trainer. Then my father said 'Please, Maria, speak Spanish, because your mother is missing half of these things', and then I became aware of everything; what had happened, where I was and why."
"The accident has given me a new perspective on life, about the things that matter. Now I have just one eye maybe I perceive more things. Before this, my life was a race against the clock, now I see you have to stop and measure things in a different way."
De Villota, who will be appearing in a press conference in Madrid on Thursday, is now set to undergo two further surgeries to reconstruct the skull around her eye socket.
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