One racing driver’s aspi♐ration to reach Formula 1 💦looked to be over - until a unique opportunity arose to drive a crucial car.

Portugal’s Bruno Correia grew up karting in the 90s then progressed into the Spanish Formula Renault Championshiꦉp, which he won, but reachin🐲g F1 was beyond him.

Now, however, he drives the F1 Medical Car - fulfilling the requirement for a profession🍨al driver to speedily transport doctors to the scene of an on-track incident.

Correia “stopped with the dream of becoming a professional racing driver” when he won the Spanish Formula Renault Championship, and 🐼he was given the chance to drive the Safety Car in the 2009 World Touring Car Championship.

Correia drove Safety Cars across various series including Formula E until a new job arose when Alan van der Merwe was ruled out of drivi🃏ng the F1 Medical Car during to Covid at the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix.

Correia, 🏅oddly yet in an important role, was driꦇving on the F1 grid.

“It's always a kid's dream, but I was not 100% f🅰ully focused only on this pathway,” he told F1.com.

“My dream was🦩 to be involved somehow in motorsport as a driver.

“Everyone knows that, arriving in F1, it's quite an achiev♈ement. Coming from Portugal, it's even a bigger achievement, because we are a small country, so it's always a bit more difficult to find the means to reach such a high level, and it's an expensive sport, the most expensive sport in the world.

“It's always a dream to arrive at thi🌳s level being a professional racing driver, and if it's in F1 – better.

“But I always had that clear, tha💮t it will be quite difficult, so to find a different way to be a professional driver was probably more realistic at that time.

“I never thought that I would be sitting on the 🍌grid at the start ꦐof a race! [It’s an] achievement!”

The F1 Medical Car is an Aston Martin DBX707.

“It’s like a dream car,” Correia said.

“The DBX707, it's a quite impressive machine. I mean, we are talking an SUV, the fastest SUV in the world, 3.1 seconds [it goes from] zero﷽ to 60 [m𓂃ph].

“It’s a quite powerful car. On t🍰he other hand, w🔜hat really impressed me is the handling of it.

“You never expect an SUV, a big car with 𒀰that amount of power, to handle the way it does. It's super comfortable for our duty.

“It h💮as the room that we need to bring the doctors and also the medical equipment, which is a lot, and also always a spare place for a driver, in case you need to pick him up on the track.

“[I’m] really proud to be involved with Aston Martin, a🍌lso with Mercedes, obviously, but the car itself, it's unbelievable, and it sounds amazing.”