All motor racing drivers experience it, yet fear is rarely discussed. we talk to Marc Gené about the sport’s biggest taboo subject
In motor racing fear is private; if people feel it, they don’t show it. Because fear is the fear of death. As far as the sport is concerned, the term is off limits. When a fatal accident occurs, and fortunately this risk has been practically eliminated by safety improvements in recent years, drivers have an automatic defence: ‘It couldn’t happen to me.’ You don’t have to go back too far to find the feeling of dismay that accompanies the loss of a driver. The fatal events of the San Marino GP in 1994, at which Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna lost their lives, still seem fresh. Yet there is no discussion of fear. It’s almost as if it no longer exists. Is this really the case? We wanted to address this taboo subject, to speak with a driver who had survived an horrific accident. We wanted to search the soul of an intelligent, cultured man like marc Gené, to try to uncover the feelings all his colleagues experience. the picture he paints is lucid and insightful, and perhaps sheds light on us all, seeing as, even off the track, fear plays a part in everyone’s lives.
The Official Ferrari Magazine: Marc, I want to talk about that horrific accident. For this I’d like us to take a journey right from the beginning, to examine the risk that drivers face, and also at what point and to what extent this risk provokes fear or concern. When you were a boy and started out with karts, did you think about fear, perhaps because of an accident that happened to someone else or to an idol of yours?
Marc Gené: When you’re young you’re not aware of it. I used to race karts with my two older brothers. One of them had an accident and stopped racing. He could have become a real driver, he used to go fast; maybe he was scared. I didn’t understand. When I was 11 I lost my ring finger during a race, it was sliced off by the chain. But stopping didn’t even cross my mind. I made a mistake trying to regulate the fuel during a race but it was my own fault.
FM: And what about when you grew up and started out as a racing driver?
MG: When Senna and Ratzenberger had their accidents at Imola I was at Silverstone, racing in Formula Three. We were watching the Formula One on TV. It’s always like that when you hope to race in it yourself, and to us it seemed like it couldn’t be true. When you’re 20 you don’t yet know what death is. You switch off the television and an hour later you’re back out on the track and you don’t think about it anymore. You think it will never happen to you.
FM: this might be due to that feeling of immortality you have when you’re young, the competitive spirit and ambition. But can your feelings be influenced by practicing a dangerous sport? How do you deal with a girlfriend you love, a wife, your parents?
MG: It changes them a lot. Having a connection like that changes things; having someone who depends on you makes a difference. Because then there’s the fear of leaving them alone. It’s different for your parents, they’re independent. But when there’s someone who’s close to you that you love, you start thinking about it. Before you wouldn’t think about it, you were on your own. Afterwards you think about it.
FM: How should the wife of a racing driver behave, given they play such an important psychological role?
MG: It’s not an easy role: they have to avoid extremes. It’s no good if they don’t worry about anything, but they also mustn’t want to get too close and want to become your manager! You need to be the one to go after her; she has to understand the times you need her and her support. A word or two before a race is special, even just a text message gives you a positive boost. She has to lift your spirits or calm you down depending on the circumstances; it’s a bit like being a psychologist.
Luckily I haven’t had experience of women who make you nervous or who panic. What’s important is that they don’t affect your decisions.
FM: And your parents?
MG: I don’t know. It was my father who used to take us three brothers karting. We used to go fast. He said that if all my marks at school were between eight and 10 he would buy me a kart or a motorbike, whichever I chose. I was eight, I got good marks and I chose a kart. He was proud, he used to cheer me on. my mother was like all mothers: she used to tell me not to go too fast, not to get hurt. But you’re not the one who’s worried, the fear is theirs. If you get hurt when you’re young it must be awful for the parents because they’re the ones who take you to the races and they’re the ones who bought you the kart.
FM: Enzo Ferrari used to say that having a child would take a second off a driver’s speed.
MG: Yes and no. No because it would be impossible to carry on racing; yes because it’s true that there are times when you take fewer risks. On the other hand, the stability and peace you get from having a family make you more thoughtful and give you more stability in your performance, more methods for preparing your car. When you have a family you put the races into perspective; when you’re alone you think they are the be all and end all. Afterwards your priorities change, even if your results stay the same.
FM: Perhaps the times have also changed. the risks used to be much greater…
MG: What’s really changed nowadays is that the entire team puts safety first, they’re like a family. At Ferrari it’s fantastic: they always tell you to stop immediately if you feel something’s not right, and during tests they let you know exactly what the new part is that you’re testing and how reliable they think it is. In the past this wasn’t part of racing.
FM: But marc, what is fear?
MG: It’s when you lose control, when you don’t know how it’s going to end. If you lose control of your car but you know that there’s space and that the collision will be alright, you can still control the situation. otherwise you know straight away, you just need a second to realise that you don’t know what’s going to happen. Then you’re afraid. Fear is water on the straight. You can’t see anything in front of you, you can’t control the situation and you don’t know if someone has stopped up ahead in your path. to give you an idea, it’s like when you’re on the motorway and you overtake a lorry in the rain and you can’t see anything. You race like that. that’s when you see who’s afraid and eases off on the pedal, and who isn’t. You have to not think about it, look to the side of the track to work out where you are and when to brake, looking for posters or other reference points. then there’s aquaplaning which adds to the risk. In the rain, with everyone close together, it’s really difficult, it’s hard not to feel the fear.
FM: Everyone remembers your fantastic race at Monza in 2003 with Williams, when you stepped in at the last minute to replace your team-mate Ralf Schumacher. Were you afraid to be called up like that, at the last minute, without tests or any psychological preparation?
MG: They woke me up on Saturday morning, saying I had to go straight to the track because I had to drive. I didn’t have time to think. I raced over there, they adjusted the seat and the pedals for me, and I was off. I made the fifthfastest time, behind the two Ferraris, my team mate Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Räikkönen with McLaren. I like Monza, I was psyched up by the result of the time trial, and it was my mind that made the difference. I finished fifth in the race as well, but fear didn’t even cross my mind.
FM: now tell me about the accident, the one nobody would like to experience. What do you think at that moment when it seems as if it’s all over?
MG: It was during the tests for Le mans in 2008, 15 days before the race. I went into the curve too quickly. I knew straight away it was going to be bad, that I was going to destroy the car. I was going over 270km/h. But at that point I was still in control. However, sports cars [it was a Peugeot 908 from the official team] have a large underside and when I started moving sideways the air that came in beneath the body created uplift and the car went airborne. At that point I couldn’t see how high I was going. there was complete silence, no more friction, no more sounds from the engine. I thought I was going to fly over the barriers, between the trees. I don’t know if I closed my eyes at any point. It went on forever. I thought about my wife [Eva] and my daughter [Sienna]. I thought, ‘Poor things, I’m going to leave them’. At that point I hit the ground. The car had turned upside down, still in flight. Luckily it was closed; it was a miracle. the roof of the car hit the top of the barriers, on the outside wall. I don’t remember how long it lasted. Until I came to a stop I didn’t know that I was alive. I was in extreme pain. I thought I’d lost my feet or my toes but I said to myself, ‘It’s alright, it went oK’. When I was in the ambulance the doctor said to me, ‘marc, no more racing’. I told him I didn’t care, I was thinking of stopping. then I asked for a phone so I could call my wife; I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to talk. I said to her, ‘Eva, I’m alright’, then I burst into tears.
FM: And then?
MG: At the hospital they saw that my feet were just dislocated; they put them back into place. After five or six hours I was already thinking about the race.
[It seems incredible, but two weeks later Gené was out on the circuit, finishing second overall in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.]
FM: Why did you think about Eva and Sienna and not about Patrick who had just been born?
MG: I don’t know. Eva asked me the same thing. I didn’t know what to say.
FM: Did it change you?
MG: Yes, I think so. In the race I went through that curve more slowly. occasionally when I passed by it crossed my mind; I said to myself, ‘Watch it marc’, but I wasn’t afraid. I really noticed I’d changed afterwards when at the end of the season we lost the championship in the last race. It wasn’t my fault: at the time my team-mate was driving. Before I would have seen it as a tragedy. Instead I got over it: I have different priorities.
Marc Gené, the Spanish driver from Sabadell, a small town close to Barcelona, is a cultured polyglot with a degree in economics. ‘I was racing Formula Three in England while I was studying at university,’ he recalls. ‘I knew that it was hard to make a career as a racing driver and I wanted to be ready for life.’ today the 34 year old is a valuable test driver and PR man for Ferrari, and an expert in the Formula One simulator. Here he has provided insight into the thoughts of a professional racing driver. He described the turbulent relationship between the passion for driving and challenges, and the sense of responsibility. In a way, he also helped us to understand the phrase used by drivers when they decide to stop racing: ‘I don’t have the same motivation’. they see themselves differently when faced with situations where they no longer have control over their car: the moments of fear. A fear that comes from the great mirror in which one glimpses the people one loves and is responsible for. You might wonder why Marc, at that death-defying moment, thought about Sienna and Eva and not about Patrick who was just a couple of months old. And it makes sense: the former two would have understood, would have suffered and would have felt his absence acutely. But not Patrick. It is the same for all of us: the more people depend on us in terms of love and responsibility, the more important and precious they are. So Enzo Ferrari was not being cynical, it’s just that he knew this too.
Published on The Official Ferrari Magazine nr 5, May 2009
PUBLISHED IN HOME, PEOPLE BY ANTONIO GHINI ON 07.31.2011
Credit: Ferrari S.p.A. (www.ferrari.com)
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