For his first 44 years he lived one life, then since 8 March 1986 he has lived another. That's all Frank Williams has tended to say publicly about the devastating accident that forever changed his daily existence, because as far as he is concerned what else is there to say? To the rest of us, his resilience in the face of such severe physical disability makes him a figure of dumbfounding awe.
To the man himself, it's just the reality he finds himself living through. Self-indulgence, self-pity? Not likely. After the accident, the only option was - and still is - to press on regardless. That is the Williams way.
The road accident that so very nearly killed him occurred just as his team was returning to dominance, when the same purity of engineering that had made it a winner for the first time in 1979 and a champion by 1980 was harnessing and unleashing the full potency of Honda's increasingly super-powered V6 turbo.