'..by being a racing driver you are racing with other people and if you no longer go for a gap that exists you are no longer a racing driver...we are competing to win, the main motivation for all of us is to compete for the victory not to come third, fourth, fifth or sixth...'
Thus spake Ayrton Senna after being questioned by Jackie Stewart about his, at times, borderline approach to racing that resulted in him - more often than compared to a lot of his contemporaries it must be said - coming a cropper with a fellow driver.
It's a statement that rings true for all racers; two and four-wheeled alike, and it was Senna's heartfelt response that flickered into my mind as I watched Dani Pedrosa clutching his collarbone through the cloud of dust at Chemin Aux Boeufs.
Following the PedroCelli incident at Le Mans, I found it somewhat suprising how many people were frothing at the mouth, hurling vitriol towards the fastest afro in the west when all he did was try to pass someone, even if it was a bold move.
A pass was there to be had and Simoncelli - being a racer - went for it. Unfortunately, it came off badly for Pedrosa but there was no malice in the move, though you wouldn't think that reading and listening to some of the reactions out there!
Not since the Zapruder film has one piece of footage been played, replayed and disected to the point where you're almost expecting to see a muzzle flash from behind the grassy knoll at Garage Bleu. Ok, it's fun to analyze such situations, but it has risked turning racing into a bunch of raw numbers as pundits try to establish clear definitions on what is a clean pass and what isn't - everything looks oh so simple when freeze framed.
When I go back and check out some footage during the 'Golden Age' of GP's, there was a lot of close racing and swapping paint with your competitor was seen more of an occupational annoyance than a declaration of war. This was a period dominated by American riders,most of whom graduated to GP's after cutting their teeth on unforgiving, cumbersone machines in speedway and superbikes.
Many of the 500cc champions crowned in the 80's, namely Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer and Wayne Gardner moved straight to the 500cc world championship, so the hard nosed tactics they picked up back home were taken straight to the big leagues and as history shows us, they all did pretty damn well. Yes some of these guys raced 250's in various domestic championships, but on the world stage it was straight to the big, bad 500's.
These days, most wannabe MotoGP racers go about their craft in a more refined way, spending loads of time on finely tuned GP machines until graduating to the razor-edged 800's - though words like 'unforgiving' can be used to describe these machines, words like 'cumbersome' certainly can not.
So kids tootling around on a metrakit under the hopeful eyes of their parents are brought up in the racing world on machines that dynamically, do things a lot better than the popeye-forearmed racers from the 80's had to put up with, so to some extent it's understandable that contact during racing these days is viewed with such distaste, as in many cases, there is no good excuse for it.
So many race fans still look back to the 80's longingly and though expecting a return to such a style of racing is far fetched simply due to the performance traits of modern MotoGP machines, why do so many others treat with such derision the odd bump between riders when this was meat and potatoes stuff just over a decade ago?
What apart from the bikes what's changed? Could part of the current inquisitory mindset surrounding the paddock be attributed to general social attitudes which permeate everything in life, even our precious octane-charged biodome of the MotoGP paddock? Is the litigatious, health and safety leanings of 21st century society seeping into the last bastion of white-knuckled, balls-to-the-wall competition that is motorcycle road racing?
You can see it out there on the internet forums and blogs of the world: 'Simoncelli is crazy'; 'he has no place in MotoGP'; and my favourite: 'He clearly doesn't know what he's doing'!
Have these people forgotten what racing is all about? These guys are racing for the ultimate prize and they're consummate professionals but at the end of the day they are human and so, mistakes will happen. But please, the nanny-state posturing that breeds some of the comments I've seen has no place in the racing world.
The tobacco money is gone, replaced in some part by the hip, in-your-face and socially acceptable sponsorship dollars of the energy-drinks cartel. The grid girls, God bless 'em are still there but no doubt there is a coven of beige-business-suit bedecked feminists out there who are plotting their downfall too. The last thing we need is for race direction to adopt a more socially acceptable stance and start sending riders to the naughty corner because they went for a pass.
So where am I going with all this? I don't know, there was a lot more scotch left in the bottle when I started, but my message to the race direction overlords it this: It's only a matter of time until the sensibilities of the outside world bring our beautiful racing nirvana crumbling down around us. Let's not give them an in by sanctioning racers for doing the thing they do best. Racing.
Thus spake Ayrton Senna after being questioned by Jackie Stewart about his, at times, borderline approach to racing that resulted in him - more often than compared to a lot of his contemporaries it must be said - coming a cropper with a fellow driver.
It's a statement that rings true for all racers; two and four-wheeled alike, and it was Senna's heartfelt response that flickered into my mind as I watched Dani Pedrosa clutching his collarbone through the cloud of dust at Chemin Aux Boeufs.
Following the PedroCelli incident at Le Mans, I found it somewhat suprising how many people were frothing at the mouth, hurling vitriol towards the fastest afro in the west when all he did was try to pass someone, even if it was a bold move.
A pass was there to be had and Simoncelli - being a racer - went for it. Unfortunately, it came off badly for Pedrosa but there was no malice in the move, though you wouldn't think that reading and listening to some of the reactions out there!
Not since the Zapruder film has one piece of footage been played, replayed and disected to the point where you're almost expecting to see a muzzle flash from behind the grassy knoll at Garage Bleu. Ok, it's fun to analyze such situations, but it has risked turning racing into a bunch of raw numbers as pundits try to establish clear definitions on what is a clean pass and what isn't - everything looks oh so simple when freeze framed.
When I go back and check out some footage during the 'Golden Age' of GP's, there was a lot of close racing and swapping paint with your competitor was seen more of an occupational annoyance than a declaration of war. This was a period dominated by American riders,most of whom graduated to GP's after cutting their teeth on unforgiving, cumbersone machines in speedway and superbikes.
Many of the 500cc champions crowned in the 80's, namely Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer and Wayne Gardner moved straight to the 500cc world championship, so the hard nosed tactics they picked up back home were taken straight to the big leagues and as history shows us, they all did pretty damn well. Yes some of these guys raced 250's in various domestic championships, but on the world stage it was straight to the big, bad 500's.
These days, most wannabe MotoGP racers go about their craft in a more refined way, spending loads of time on finely tuned GP machines until graduating to the razor-edged 800's - though words like 'unforgiving' can be used to describe these machines, words like 'cumbersome' certainly can not.
So kids tootling around on a metrakit under the hopeful eyes of their parents are brought up in the racing world on machines that dynamically, do things a lot better than the popeye-forearmed racers from the 80's had to put up with, so to some extent it's understandable that contact during racing these days is viewed with such distaste, as in many cases, there is no good excuse for it.
So many race fans still look back to the 80's longingly and though expecting a return to such a style of racing is far fetched simply due to the performance traits of modern MotoGP machines, why do so many others treat with such derision the odd bump between riders when this was meat and potatoes stuff just over a decade ago?
What apart from the bikes what's changed? Could part of the current inquisitory mindset surrounding the paddock be attributed to general social attitudes which permeate everything in life, even our precious octane-charged biodome of the MotoGP paddock? Is the litigatious, health and safety leanings of 21st century society seeping into the last bastion of white-knuckled, balls-to-the-wall competition that is motorcycle road racing?
You can see it out there on the internet forums and blogs of the world: 'Simoncelli is crazy'; 'he has no place in MotoGP'; and my favourite: 'He clearly doesn't know what he's doing'!
Have these people forgotten what racing is all about? These guys are racing for the ultimate prize and they're consummate professionals but at the end of the day they are human and so, mistakes will happen. But please, the nanny-state posturing that breeds some of the comments I've seen has no place in the racing world.
The tobacco money is gone, replaced in some part by the hip, in-your-face and socially acceptable sponsorship dollars of the energy-drinks cartel. The grid girls, God bless 'em are still there but no doubt there is a coven of beige-business-suit bedecked feminists out there who are plotting their downfall too. The last thing we need is for race direction to adopt a more socially acceptable stance and start sending riders to the naughty corner because they went for a pass.
So where am I going with all this? I don't know, there was a lot more scotch left in the bottle when I started, but my message to the race direction overlords it this: It's only a matter of time until the sensibilities of the outside world bring our beautiful racing nirvana crumbling down around us. Let's not give them an in by sanctioning racers for doing the thing they do best. Racing.
