On Track Off Road No.184

ut for me it is those little things that gives
you a stronger feeling and that makes the
difference. I always want everything to be
perfect but I know you cannot control everything.
I want to maintain the feeling of ‘I
can do it better’. But, like I said to my Dad
sometimes after a race, I know I am doing
what I want with my life and for that I am
lucky, and there are parts of a race that are
very satisfying such as knowing a particular
technique through one section saved me hitting
a bump and won more time. That helps
with my motivation.
But you also seem to be someone who is
quite hard on himself…
Yes, that’s true and that’s my character. I
know I can be quite hard to live with!
I know sometimes it will look like I am
being negative: to always want to be better
means not always being happy! But it
is more about the search for details…and I
know that some of them are not really important
in life generally.
People might think ‘Desalle is negative’ but
it is just a different style to be better and
to analyse how to do that. I’ve changed my
mentality in the last few years to look at the
more positive parts of what I do and having
my daughter Emma has helped with that.
Also helping with leaving some obsessive
thoughts at the door. There are times when
you cannot ‘leave it outside’ though: things
have to be better and a solution must be
found. You cannot swing to the other side
and say ‘everything is OK…’ and then end
up having a problem and losing the moto.
If we do that then we are fighting to be 7th,
8th or 9th. That’s not what we are searching
for. Again it is about finding a good balance.
It’s a complicated sport: the need to find
the area of satisfaction with results, with
speed but also health. It’s a lot to manage…
It’s not easy! And sometimes you have to
think about it. On some tracks I feel like
I see a lot of ‘green lights’ and I can just
go. But that’s not the case on some others
and you have to play around with what you
can and are prepared to do. Last year I was
struggling on some tracks on Saturday and
could turn it around to make the podium on
Sunday. In Turkey for example it was not so
easy because the track was really fast. So
you have to play around with what you know
you have to do on a weekend. You know the
feeling you have on that one day and you
have to do the best you can with it. Sometimes
it can go well and sometimes you can
lose the whole championship because you
didn’t want 9th or 10th place. That’s happened
to me. I’ve seen ‘red lights’ around
the track and have known it’s better to take
what I can rather than throw the championship
away.