He will not be missing from F1 action ....
Sid Watkins will continue to be involved with the sport through his presidency of the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety and is expected to be a regular visitor to Grands Prix in that role.
its nice to see that his replcement has trained under him for 8 years .......
His place will be taken by Gary Hartstein, associate professor of anaesthesiology and intensive care medicine at the University Hospital of Liege in Belgium. Hartsein has been working with Watkins for the last eight years
Hartstein is one of the few Americans working in F1 and comes originally from Staten Island, New York. Because of a shortage of places in US medical schools in the 1970s the moved to Belgium and stayed there until 1983 when he returned to New York and did emergency room work in the Bronx before returning to a quieter life in Belgium. In 1989 he began working as a doctor at Spa. The result was that he met Watkins and the two men hit it off and as a result Hartstein became a regular member of the team. |