MOTOGP CHIEF DOCTOR ANGEL CHARTE SAYS HE MUST SWITCH OFF AFTER CRITICAL INCIDENTS

MotoGP’s chief physician, Dr. Angel Charte, has described the medical team’s role as more than technical intervention—saying the riders build a relationship of trust over time, and that the job requires a calm, decisive mindset when crashes turn brutal.

In an interview with SPEEDWEEK.com’s Manuel Pecino, Charte said he believes the championship’s medical setup—including doctors and physiotherapists—creates a “special feeling of safety” for the riders. “Man verbringt das ganze Jahr mit ihnen,” he explained, adding that the ongoing contact leads to a direct bond that can become personal, familial, and professional.

Charte pointed to examples from recent incidents. After Bezzecchi crashed, Charte said the rider did not want to be examined by the Dutch medical staff and instead told him directly: “Du sollst mich untersuchen.” Charte described Bezzecchi as a man with a strong character, but said similar trust is visible in other riders as well, naming Binder, Bagnaia, and others. “Ich glaube, sie fühlen sich bei uns sehr sicher,” he said, emphasizing that the riders feel comfortable with the team.

Asked whether the medical staff must be “cut from special wood” to handle immediate, sometimes violent emergencies, Charte argued that not every doctor is suited to this environment. He said intensive care physicians are different: in a hospital emergency department, the situation is serious but not identical to arriving at a race circuit with a rider who may have suffered multiple types of trauma. “Hier fahre ich ganz gelassen zu den Unfällen. Sehr, sehr gelassen,” he said, stressing that the key is not transferring tension to the team. He distinguished between being tense and staying composed, saying the difference matters.

Charte also explained what he expects when he receives a call about a crash. If told, for example, “Kurve 12, Fahrer bewusstlos,” he said he cannot know the exact outcome in advance, but he can anticipate a range of possibilities: internal injuries, femur fractures, open fractures, lung bruising, brain bruising, or severe head and brain trauma. Because of that uncertainty, he said hesitation is not an option.

On what a doctor must do first, Charte said the job is not to deliver a diagnosis when time is limited. “Unsere Aufgabe ist es, ihm das Leben zu retten,” he stated. He said the approach must be taken seriously and carried out responsibly and professionally, and that if someone cannot do that, they are not suited for the role—just as they would not be suited for work in an intensive care setting in a hospital.

Charte then turned to the psychological side of the work, referencing his own coping methods and those of his family. He said his brother, a surgeon who spent ten years in an emergency department, eventually sought psychological help because he felt he sometimes had to “take on the role of God”—that he could save some patients but not others.

Charte said he too has to manage frustrations. He described a mental rule: if he took every severely ill patient personally, he would have died “already 30 years ago.” When he gets home, he tries to conduct a small analysis of what happened, reviewing what might have been overlooked. He also said he relies on his team—both in intensive care and emergency—and if necessary he will call and ask someone to look again: “Hey, kannst du dir das hier noch einmal genauer ansehen?”

But he emphasized that he tries to switch off. “Wenn ich nicht abschalten würde, wäre ich tot,” he said, adding that it is impossible to take everything in your head straight to bed.

When asked whether he never brings difficult cases home—especially involving young people—Charte said that sometimes he does, particularly when the patients are young or children, and when the people become close to his heart.

Charte also discussed his long tenure in the MotoGP environment, saying he has been involved for a very long time, starting when he was 23, in 1979 or 1980. He was also asked whether the team has worked without psychologists; he said that while life is complicated on personal, family, and professional levels, he has at times tried to see a psychologist.

Across the interview, Charte’s message was consistent: trust is built through ongoing contact, emergencies demand calm and immediate action, and survival in the role depends on disciplined mental separation after the work is done.