Juan Manuel Correa (born 9 August 1999) is an Ecuadorian-American racing driver whose junior career became one of the most remarkable stories of resilience in modern motorsport. Raised in the United States with Ecuadorian roots, he won the Rotax Max Challenge Junior title in karting (2013) before moving into single-seaters with Prema in Italian and ADAC Formula 4 (2016-2017).
GP3 and Formula 2
Correa spent 2017-2018 in the GP3 Series with Jenzer Motorsport, scoring his best results in 2018. For 2019 he stepped up to Formula 2 with the Sauber Junior Team by Charouz, where he showed strong form, taking two podium finishes in the first half of the season.
The 2019 Spa crash
On 31 August 2019, during the Formula 2 feature race at Spa-Francorchamps, Correa was involved in a catastrophic crash that took the life of French driver Anthoine Hubert. Correa's car struck Hubert's at very high speed after debris and the dynamics of the multi-car incident left him unable to avoid the collision. He suffered critical injuries to both legs, a spinal injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome, spending time in a medically induced coma on ECMO life support. His recovery required around two dozen operations and many months of rehabilitation; doctors at one point discussed amputating his right leg, which he ultimately kept and regained the use of after long surgical reconstruction.
Return to racing
After roughly 18 months away, Correa returned to competition in the 2021 FIA Formula 3 Championship with ART Grand Prix, an emotional comeback that was a triumph in itself. He continued in F3 with ART in 2022, taking a podium at Zandvoort. He then made his Formula 2 return, racing for Van Amersfoort Racing in 2022 (a part-season debut) and full-time in 2023, before a 2024 campaign that included a stint with DAMS. His results were modest as he rebuilt his career, but the return to the F2 grid after such injuries was itself extraordinary. He later moved to the United States ladder, racing in Indy NXT.