'I usually get up about 7.20am. I'm from Bologna [in Italy] but we live in Padova, which is my wife, Daniela's, home town. My first job is to get our son, Niccolo, ready for school. He's eight years old. His mother takes him and, if I am not away racing, I collect him - that's my job. Niccolo is not interested in motor racing. His mother is happy about that.
My interest in racing started in a sad way, when my sister was killed in a road accident. My parents were nervous about me getting thrills on the road with a motor bike so encouraged me to take up kart racing.
It was a miracle that I survived my accident in 2001.
I was racing in the Champ Car series at a track in Germany. I accelerated from the pits after the last stop for fuel and I thought, 'That's it, I've won the race', but then the car spun out of control and was hit by another car going more than 300 km/h. The driver was called Alex Tagliani, which is ironic because in Italian, tagliani means 'cutting'. He did his best to avoid me but the strongest piece of his car hit the weakest part of mine and my car went into two parts with a bit of me on one side and a bit on the other. I had about one litre of blood left when they got me to hospital. The doctors did an amazing job to save my life.
Only a small percentage of bilateral amputees have been able to make prosthetics an advantage over a wheelchair. They can be very uncomfortable. It's like wearing a pair of uncomfortable ski boots. They are attached to my upper legs by a vacuum effect so they can be very hot and sweaty. It's a relief to take them off.
I don't need [walking] canes to maintain balance.