He has happy eyes Claudio Costathe guardian angel of MotoGP, the founder of the Mobile Clinic who saved the lives of pilots for four decades. He munches on the remains of a biscuit, sitting at the table Medical Center of Mugello, where everyone embraced him, from the veterans Loris Capirossi and Marc Marquez to the beginner Pedro Acosta. For them he is the Doctor par excellence, not only for his medical degree and his three specializations.
83 years old and not hearing it: he has just landed on social media.
«Retirement is like exile. Either you accept it or you go back to living. And I decided to go back to life telling the story of my first 40 years.”
He will speak to young people who are often called slackers today.
«They are like us, with the difference that we saw the future, it didn’t scare us. For them, however, it is not clear and this threatens them. Children are a mine from which adults must know how to extract gold. In each of them there is paradise, a life that wants to affirm itself. They just need someone to help them.”
And who can help them?
«The family is often distracted, the school instructs but does not educate and society struggles to shatter the rocks that cover their beauty. Examples are needed.”
What were yours?
«My mother fed me with milk, my father brought me into the world of motorcycling. There I started to love my heroes, the pilots. But they died. I brought them to life in my imagination but it wasn’t enough. So, so that this torment would stop, I was the first to bring the resuscitation doctor to the track, the only one who could save them.”
Does he still mourn the pilots he couldn’t save?
“Everyone. On May 20, 1973, while I held Renzo Pasolini dead to my chest in Monza, I couldn’t rest. It was a terrible accident, involving 8 pilots. He suffered a terrible head injury. I tried to revive him for so long that I finally passed out. They tried to push me away, but I resisted. Unfortunately I didn’t make it.”
Jarno Saarinen also died in that accident.
«Two months earlier he fell in Imola while fighting with Agostini. Fracture of the tibial spine and tibial plateau. I put a cast on him that he would have to wear for 60 days. He looked at me. “When can I run again?”; “When would you like?”, I replied. Even today I don’t know who spoke my voice.”
And what happened?
«”In a week I want to race in Modena”, he told me. “Then the Imola 200 Miglia and the World Championship”. I took off his cast after 5 days, he made his dreams come true: “This is for you”, he told me with every victory. Words that filled me with joy, but when he was hit by Pasolini’s motorbike I felt a remorse that I will take to my grave. If I hadn’t taken off his cast, he wouldn’t have died.”
He died doing what he liked best.
«He told me “If you want to become a doctor for me and the drivers, you just have to tell us when we will be able to race. From there the story will only be ours”. In reality that story then became mine too».
The Mobile Clinic saved lives but was not well regarded abroad.
«The foreigners considered it illegal that I practiced in their territory. Once in Sweden, after the start of the 500, they took me to prison.”
Was it in Sepang, in 2011, when Simoncelli lost his life?
«No, but if I had spent the moments before the race with him, things would probably have gone differently».
In what sense?
«I’m not referring to a medical event, whoever assisted him did more than was impossible. But I’m a very superstitious person and on the starting line Marco had his towel inside out. I couldn’t have ignored this. Paolo, his father, burned that towel.”
Speaking of fathers, he also “resurrected” Graziano Rossi.
«He fell in Imola, at the Villeneuve curve. I saved his life with cardiac massage. In the arms of his wife Stefania there was a three-year-old boy, named Valentino, who was lucky enough to grow up with a father and became the strongest rider in the history of motorcycling. A legend that went beyond perfection not with the torment of mystics but with the game.”
What relationship did you have with Valentino Rossi?
«When he was racing in 125, a bad car accident with Graziano caused him a severe head injury. Doctors questioned whether he could continue his career. I took him to Villa Serena, a nursing home in Forlì. We studied his brain, precious and wonderful: “For me he can run already on Sunday in Indonesia”, I said to his mother. We got on the plane together, he won the race: “I never thought I would do it – he said – Doctor Costa managed not only to cure me but to convince me”.
Claudio continues to talk about Valentino, he lights up as he talks about the feats to which he contributed: «At Le Mans, despite a bad shoulder, he took pole in qualifying and in the race he came second, a few thousandths behind Lorenzo». And then again: «At the Sachsenring, despite having a fever of 40, he finished in front of everyone». Then his eyes darken.
Your relationship deteriorated in 2010, after the terrible fall at Mugello (displaced and exposed fracture of the tibia and fibula, Rossi refused treatment at the Clinica Mobile).
«I would prefer not to talk about this. It’s still an open wound because I made a mistake as a doctor.”
How is Zanardi?
«He is running the most beautiful and important race of his life. Only a body as strong as his can resist in these conditions.”
How did you meet?
«He raced with Lotus, he came to me to treat fractures in his foot: “If I’m here it’s not to find out what’s wrong with me, but because I have to race at Hockenheim on Sunday”. I took my suitcase and left with him.”
In 2001 the first terrible accident in the Lausitzring GP.
«I remember the phone call from his wife. I rushed into the car and arrived in Berlin. Alex was in intensive care, they took him to the emergency room with less than a liter of blood in his body. Sitting next to the bed, I started talking to him, knowing that he would hear my voice. At a certain point, full of tubes, he began to move his hand and write in the air.”
What did it mean?
«It surprised us, all the staff stopped to observe it. Then I had a flash of clarity: a week before the race he had written me a letter in which he said that he would win, demonstrating that he had returned to his former glory. With that gesture he was referring to that.”
Did what he managed to do next surprise you too?
«I told his wife that he would wake up and race in Formula 1 again. However, I never thought that he would win all those Olympic medals».
Speaking of cars, he also took care of Senna.
«I was admired by that pilot with supreme leadership, he had an infinite passion. One day Angelo Orsi, his photographer, knocked on the door: “He wants to meet you.” Away from prying eyes we went to his hotel, we immediately liked each other. He asked me many questions about neck muscles and supplements, then he had an annoying conjunctivitis which he healed with the therapy I recommended and he was surprised. My fee? Being able to hug him.”
How did you meet Enzo Ferrari?
«He was born on February 18th, but due to a snowfall they registered him on the 20th, like me. For his birthday he organized a party in Maranello with the team and drivers, my father was among the guests and took me with him. Much later his wife was admitted to the Rizzoli hospital in Bologna, where I worked. She kept her company until midnight and, knowing this, I replaced the doctor on call. What an honor to talk to us about love and motors.”
Are you still emotional Doctor?
«Always, in the mother’s womb as well as at the end of life. The pilots continue to make my soul vibrate. Thanks to them I say: “Yes, I still exist”.
