ENG // MotoRC 2 – Mistakes are a beautiful thing when you learn from them

I really like Greece. I like the food, the places full of history, the seaside and the mountains. The Serres race track is a small track that felt difficult to me at first – and still feels like it –, but the key that helped me understand the track better was to connect some of the corners and treat them as one.

After my mistake in the first race, I felt even more motivated. It’s not that I have a feeling of superiority and only being the first would satisfy me. It’s the fact that the first place was one I felt capable of in this season. I was sad because of the first race, but not because I got beaten and got to the second place, but because I put myself – by making the error – on the second place. However, there is a lesson I managed to find here: always learn and always evolve from your mistakes. In my opinion, the mistake I did in the first race is the one that made me unbeatable in this second one.

Here is how 👇

Apart from the obvious – I was even more motivated and concentrated and got the pole position –, it was the way I managed the race.

The financial problems of the club I was at the moment had just begun. So I had no support for this race. To be fair, I still had my bike and athlete’s salary (that would also go away, along with the whole team by the end of the season). Why am I explaining this? This was the first race where I had the support of PIRELLI Romania – through the importer Chemtraders. They would build the Pirelli tent at this race (and the following ones) and we would set up our team there.

For the race I had to choose the rear tire. I stayed on the phone with my mentor from France, Adrien Morillas, I explained to him the conditions and he told me to go with the softer tire – Pirelli SC0. I trusted him completely. Mentally, I knew I could win the race.

The race

I got at the front and started to open up a gap. Cătălin Cazacu recovered the gap at around four laps to the finish. We started to lap the slower riders – same situation as in the first race that I had lost. This time though, I gave my full concentration, never panicked and I used all the slower riders to my advantage by overtaking them in key spots, so that my opponent would be held up by them. The most important moment was when I went by two slower riders simultaneously by modifying my trajectory, so that I could maintain the passing speed between them. That whole part of the track was occupied, and even though I couldn’t see behind me, I knew nobody could pass and I instantly got a couple of tenths of distance to the second place. The final lap arrived and during it I managed to do the fastest lap time of the whole race, while also using the Pirelli SC0.

I won!

We were both at the front of the championship, having equal points. For me it was one of the best races I had ever had, I always get a confidence boost when I remember it. Not because of the performance, but because I was surrounded by the people who believed in me and all the decisions we made during that weekend were taken with an open heart and trust, without hesitation. And that is the rider I aspire to be.

Now, imagine that I would have had an uneventful first race. No mistakes, no nothing. Maybe I still would have won this race, we don’t know. 😜😅 The point is: some bad things that happen to us turn out to be at least a wake-up call or, eventually, something good if we are able to adapt and learn from them. Well, some of them also become cool memories.