It’s the end of the season and it’s been a really difficult year for motorsport. We lost two great motorsport talents in the space of a week and it prompted a great deal of media coverage. There were some extremely well written, throught-provoking and dignified pieces out there from informed motorracing journalists and then there were all the articles written by people who had little knowledge or understanding of motorsport, some of whom admitted to never having watched a motor race of any type in their life calling for the sport to be banned outright.
It astounded me that people who were evidently so ignorant felt that they could legitimately criticise something about which they knew nothing. Few people have disputed that lessons must be learnt from the tragic and untimely death of Dan Wheldon, while most people also agree that the death of Marco Simoncelli was a freak accident, where no amount of extra safety measures could have changed the heartbreaking outcome of that horrifying crash.
I wonder if such journalists, who called for the banning of all types of motorsport to be banned, would maintain that opinion if they knew how much advancements in motorsport have affected their lives, improved road safety, even contributing significantly to medical progress and innovation. The work of the FIA is extremely important, Formula One is a hell of a lot more than expensive cars driving round and round in a circle. I can’t make people love motor racing, and you don’t need to even follow it to appreciate how many lives it has saved through safety breakthroughs and the like.
Ignorance is a dangerous and damaging thing, and there are few places where it can be more so than in the media. It's a crying shame that the achievements and the good of motorsport, the FIA and other motorsporting bodies aren't better recognised.
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