For a long time I didn’t write anything. Because I didn’t know what to write. Because I didn’t know how to write it. For a long time I struggled with myself. Victor Steeman’s accident was more than tragic. I saw it, as did many others. Only I wasn’t sitting in front of the television or in a grandstand. I was standing in a box, few boxes next to the one of Victor’s team. I was on the spot. Witnessed everything live.
Victor Steeman, Dean Berta Vinales, Jason Dupasquier, Luis Salom, Andrea Antonelli, Marco Simoncelli, Shoya Tomizawa – These are the names of the riders who, in the last eleven years in the World Championship (MotoGP & WSBK), have given their lives in the sport they loved the most. They have all lived their dream. They all knew what they were getting into. That in the sport they practice, the danger always rides with them. That something can always happen, even the worst.
When it happens. An accident in which the driver lies in the gravel and the cameras pan away. Then, when it gets quiet, in the pits and on the race track. That’s the moment when time stops for a moment. Then people cling to every piece of information, every rumor. Even if everything speaks against it. What else is there to do but hope? Only with hope can one continue. Everything else would not work. It was the same after Victor’s accident. No matter how small the hope was, it was held on to. Until the end, until the worst happened.
Everyone trying to be professional. To keep going. To keep the show alive. But is that the right thing to do? Was it right to just start both races after Victor’s accident? Was it right to hold a moment of silence right before the next race after the news of Jason’s death? Is there even a right thing to do? For me it’s hard to say, because each of us deals differently with such events. It requires a lot of tact and even more communication. It takes rules and offers of help. From my point of view, it needs more than there is now.
Raising the age limit was a good decision. But for me it was only a first step. The motorcycles are getting better and better, faster and faster. But the riders, especially in the smaller classes, hardly get the time to grow. The pressure on them is immense. Either they show a very good performance from the first race or they are out of the world championship. Which for most of them means their dream has been dashed. They have to perform, so they risk a lot. Unfortunately, sometimes too much. The young drivers have to be given the time to develop. The teams have an obligation to these young drivers. Helmet on and brain off?
Apart from the medical service of the Clinica Mobile, there should also be other help for the riders. Everyone deals with pressure differently and may need a little more support at times. In the meantime, we hear from time to time that some drivers have taken therapeutic help. For me, the teams and organizers also have a duty to make these offers. Especially when the paddock has been shaken by a stroke of fate. Not everyone can work all the time.
It sounds like little things – “A little less pressure here. A little more communication there – but a change in thinking is needed. With the teams, with the organizers. Unfortunately, we all know that bad accidents can happen. We have just experienced it painfully. It should be an obligation for everyone to deal with them better, to be able to come to terms with them and, above all, to learn from them. So that these young lives are not lost in vain.
Your Miss MotoGP