Hitting the Apex Page #5

for fourth place.

Bautista through.

Simoncelli did well just to bring that

back on the inside of Alvaro Bautista.

Stoner leads by a second on that first

lap, but it's not done and dusted.

This is just what we would have wanted

as Bautista was through on Simoncelli.

Down the straight there is one place

Simoncelli struggles on the track.

Oh, as Bautista

then round the outside...

Colin Edwards and Valentino

Rossi were just behind Simoncelli.

I touch him but I was behind Colin.

I see him just at the last moment.

I saw him crash. I was looking up

in the corner and he's crashed.

I'm gonna duck under and get

a good drive to the next corner.

The next thing you know,

he was right in front of us.

He lost the front.

He was just fighting to get it back.

He's a fighter

and he wasn't willing to give it up.

When I saw Marco crash, I think Marco

go on the outside like normal.

Never coming to the inside.

We saw it happen and we looked away

and we're in the opposite direction

from where that crash is happening.

And it just came back to us.

There was nothing we could do.

We can confirm

Marco Simoncelli died today at 4:56pm.

I went to his father.

And...

Just look at the eyes,

that's all you can say.

All the important things Marco did,

he did in Malaysia.

The worst crash, the only time

he hurt himself was in Malaysia.

On the 125, in 2003 or 2004.

Then he won the world championship

in Malaysia.

He set the fastest lap

in the MotoGP test in Malaysia.

Everything.

And then he chose to die in Malaysia.

It's a strange thing. Very strange.

I didn't want silence.

Silence creates anguish.

Marco would have wanted noise.

He was a noisy guy.

The race never ends.

The new season began in April 2012

in the darkness of the Qatari desert.

They were all there.

All but one.

Did you think about stopping?

No, never.

It's not a problem of MotoGP.

It was a bad thing

because I lose a friend, you know?

But I never make the link

that this can stop my career.

I will stop when I don't like any more

to race with motorcycles

but not for that reason.

Everyone in this world

knows what can happen.

They are not crazy people.

That is a fight

between those guys and...

Death.

In the mind of a rider,

that is the biggest challenge.

They are afraid as any other person,

but they decide to have that fight.

That fight gives a really strong energy

to feel the life,

the blood rolling around your body.

Since the Roman Empire there was

in the Coliseum the gladiators.

These are a kind of gladiator.

If you ask yourself does it make sense?

No.

We are crazy to risk the life

of young people for what?

But it's also true

this is part of human culture.

It's been like this since the beginning

and probably will be like this forever.

This reminds us

to respect the things we do.

And... sometimes you get criticized.

This guy... From the sofa,

it's very easy to point the finger.

But then you see these things

and everybody's like,

"Oh, what happened? What happened?"

But it's already too late.

So we are not just some guys

that live the dream.

We are also humans.

This is part of the game.

The game of life.

We're here today,

tomorrow we don't know.

Sometimes in the evening

when the light is fading

you go to bed

and thoughts come back to you.

You re-live certain moments

and it's very sad, very moving.

But the next day,

the light returns, life goes on.

Valentino Rossi

was serving out his time,

the second year of his Ducati contract.

It was hard to see him like that

with out a victory in two years.

To see him like that,

his eyes no longer shining.

To see him unhappy.

It was awful.

Valentino is Valentino.

If they don't give him the perfect bike

the way he wants it,

he can't risk it.

He can't risk his life.

It wasn't safe.

Casey Stoner

had a plan for 2012, do it again.

Win the world championship

and underline the fact

that he was

the number one rider in the world.

The chequered flag

beckons the Australian.

It will be his second successive win.

He leads the world championship

by one point after three rounds.

At the fourth race in France,

the Australian announced the other part

of his plan for the year.

Casey now is gonna make

an announcement.

You know this has been coming

for a couple of years now.

At the end of this 2012 season,

I will be... not racing

in the 2013 championship.

I will be finishing my career

at the end of this season in MotoGP.

And go forward

with different things in my life.

How could he do it?

Walk away from it all,

at the age of just 27,

when he's got the best bike,

he's the reigning world champion

and he's making millions?

There were all kinds of theories.

The birth of his daughter Alessandra,

ironically

on Valentino Rossi's birthday.

The possible effect

of Marco Simoncelli's death.

Stoner's loathing of the media

and the MotoGP circus in general.

I'm sure he would like

to live in the Eighties.

Much less media people

came to the racing.

Riders, they don't need

to care about any kind of image.

They could say whatever they want.

Now you have to be

very politically correct.

And you spend long hours

speaking to the press,

doing events for your sponsors.

All I ever wanted to do was go racing.

And unfortunately 90 to 95% of this job

became media appearances.

Everything else but racing.

That's the game now. Every big

sport has a lot of communication

and PR activity behind it.

He was just burned out.

It ate away at him inside.

PR appearances, interviews

and he took it all so personally.

And I said to him,

"Case, just treat it as a job."

I know it's a job.

At the same time you're going out there,

risking every day,

you gotta have passion in it.

When you lose that,

it's hard to find the motivation

to keep going out there

and doing the same things.

He might be retiring,

but Stoner was not backing off.

I wanted to go out

wearing the number one plate.

We made a mistake in Sachsenring.

And quite honestly, I was confident

I would still win the championship.

A month later,

Stoner made a second mistake.

I just made that mistake

in Indianapolis

and destroyed my ankle and that was it.

The impact tore

every ligament in his foot.

He was out for three races.

It was Dani Pedrosa's moment.

He took victory in Germany,

Indianapolis and the Czech Republic.

With six races to go, he was just

13 points behind Jorge Lorenzo.

Pedrosa qualified on pole

for the next race.

The San Marino Grand Prix.

Ready for battle. Dani Pedrosa.

His fourth pole position

of the season.

Round 13.

The MotoGP world championship.

Thirteen points

between number 26 and number 99.

What's this? The bike's being

taken away for Dani Pedrosa.

Is there some kind of problem

for Pedrosa who is in pole?

What is going on?

There is a problem

with Dani Pedrosa's machine.

This would not be fair.

This really just would not be fair.

He does not deserve this

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes