Faster

EWAN McGREGOR: The race never ends.

A week after the last Grand Prix of the year, in early November,

the teams are out testing for next season.

Lap after lap.

Knees on the ground in the corners.

200 miles an hour down the straights,

looking for a little extra speed.

They're crazy.

They're gonna kill themselves.

Maybe.

But what about the buzz?

The babes?

The money?

In fact, since 1960, only one of the 500cc World Champions

has died on the track,

Gary Hocking.

He was testing a Formula 1 car at the time.

But they all survived their motorcycle racing careers.

How do they do it?

Why do they do it?

Week in, week out,

riding and crashing,

and riding and winning,

and always faster,

and faster

and faster.

At the beginning, when you try the first time the 500,

"Ah, fuck!"

I used to think all road racers were nuts.

You know, racing around a track at that speed.

Well, it's just like a video game

that has... the element of danger.

As a racer, you always have that in the back of your mind...

You always wonder, you know,

"When's it gonna happen?"

'Cause it will happen. You will fall off.

Speed is something dangerous

but very exciting.

The top speed is 314.

Nearly 200 miles an hour? -Yeah, nearly 200 miles an hour.

It's good, huh?

For the first approach, you will think

this is a crazy sport.

By the end of the day, it's not that crazy.

Growing up as a kid, always thinking, you know,

"if I could ever just race motorcycles

"and make a living,

"that'd be the coolest thing known to mankind."

What do I like about GPs now?

The crumpet, I suppose.

This is a real war, these 16 races.

That's your job, and that's what you do

and you have to win,

or you know, you're out of your mind.

If you got second, you just wanted to kill everybody.

The sensation you have

before the green light is always the same.

It's always very, very strong.

McGREGOR: There are other international championships.

125, 250,

Supersport, Superbike.

But if you want to be the World Champion,

this is the one you have to win.

MotoGP, the fastest men

on the fastest bikes in the world.

McGREGOR: The MotoGP season runs from April to November.

Sixteen races in eight months on five continents.

The locations may change,

but it's actually all one and the same place,

a town that moves around the world,

populated by a couple of thousand highly-skilled professionals

in the grip of a shared obsession.

We all are just junkies, speed junkies.

McGREGOR: This is the routine.

Arrive Wednesday. Set up Thursday.

Practice Friday and Saturday.

Race Sunday. Pack up and move on.

At the start of the season, there are 24 riders.

At times, there will be fewer. Accidents happen.

Most teams have two riders.

Your teammate is not your ally.

He's the first person you want to beat.

The guy with the same equipment as you.

The race is a sprint. No pit stops.

Every man for himself.

Race distance is about 75 miles,

which takes around 40 minutes

when you're averaging over 100 miles an hour.

First place scores 25 points.

Second, 20. Sixteen for third.

All the way down to a single point for 15th.

But before you can think about winning,

you have to master the bike,

which in 2001, means the 500cc two-stroke,

the most brutal race machine ever built.

Anybody who can ride

a 500cc Grand Prix motorcycle

well enough to qualify for a Grand Prix grid is a hero.

Anybody. Because these things are

the most evil devices.

They are man-eaters.

If you treat them wrong, they will bite.

Well, you've got to be really careful

because the way the power is on the two-stroke engine.

If you open the power too early,

it just spins up and spits you off,

because of the weight of them

and the power that they have got.

They're pretty...

I think they're pretty evil in a way.

The two-stroke is quite a crude engine.

But for its weight,

it's a very, very effective power unit.

The 500 is another world.

The bike comes from another world.

Unbelievable, no? Because it's just sliding,

moving, a lot of power,

because just when open, impossible to control.

The acceleration was so fast.

I was used to racing bikes, 250. So...

So...

How you say? The landscape is going like this,

but with the 500, it's going like this.

It was throwing me around,

and it was hard to hang on to.

It was a real rough ride.

When the bike is working well,

the bike is doing what you want,

and you go fast, and you don't think on the bike.

It's just one. Your wheels are your legs.

It's a good connection. It's really a nice feeling.

It's nice. You know, it's...

There's not words that that can explain for the acceleration.

Now, I need more power.

It just blows your mind

when you hear the rider say "No, my bike's slow,"

and you know how fast they are.

And yet they do complain,

because they get used to the power.

I started racing when I have 14 years old.

But I started to ride the motorbike

when I was four years old.

Yes, long time ago.

I've been doing it most of my life,

ever since I was five, six years of age.

My dad used to race speedway.

It was just a fun thing, I guess.

It was his hobby, and he enjoyed it.

And then, I guess as he had a kid,

he wanted him to ride a bike, too.

My father was not so bad. My mother, for sure, no.

And then my grandfather, he had some money.

But he give me nothing for race.

He told me, "For study, I give you what you want.

"But just for bikes, I don't want to give you nothing."

My mother is my manager,

but never see the race.

When the race is finished, I phone home and say,

"Okay, Mom. I finish third, four, five."

"Okay, I see the race."

All the time, my mother say, "Okay, Loris, go easy.

"Go easy. Go slowly."

But for my job, it's difficult to go slowly.

It's better to go more fast all the time.

I am here because

I have a son racing in the motorcycle...

In the Motorcycle GP that is named Valentino Rossi.

And I am a big fan of motorcycle

and a big fan of Valentino.

My mother was not very happy,

because she want I study and blah, blah, blah.

But now, come to see the races,

and yes, have a little bit of fear like all the mothers.

My mother, too, she say motorcycle is crazy.

My father race also.

So when I started, she say no.

After Graziano, also my son.

But in the end, it's like this.

The motorcycle is a little bit hard sport.

To be... pay very good attention.

A lot of fun when you get it right,

but the other side of the coin isn't that great.

I touched a white line. It was very, very greasy.

It was almost like ice.

On full acceleration, probably about 135 mile an hour,

the bike just threw me off.

Went straight into a sand trap and then into a wall.

I broke my leg into around 17 pieces,

and my foot, my hand, my arm,