Loek Hartog Stopped. Everyone Else Drove On. What Race Are You Running?

About a racing driver who abandoned his own race to save another man, a night in Crete and the lives we continue to lead because we believe we have to.

The race was still underway.

The other drivers followed the bend. One after another, they carried on. They did what they had come to the Shanghai circuit to do. They raced their race.

Loek Hartog did not.

In the footage of the crash, you see him as the only driver going straight ahead. Not past Ollie Millroy’s burning Ferrari, but towards it. He stops his Porsche, gets out and runs towards the fire.

From that moment on, he is no longer racing the other drivers.

He is racing against time.

Why Did Loek Hartog Stop While the Other Drivers Carried On?

On 5 September 2026, British driver Ollie Millroy’s Ferrari was struck hard from the side during the China GT in Shanghai. The car burst into flames almost immediately. There were no firefighters or marshals beside it to pull him out.

The racing cars came past.

And carried on.

Loek Hartog was the only driver to stop his own race. He first tried to reach Millroy from one side, ran around the car, took a fire extinguisher and fought his way through the flames to the cockpit. He then pulled Millroy from the Ferrari.

According to Motorsport.com, the rescue took about 49 seconds from the moment Hartog left his Porsche.

Forty-nine seconds.

Long enough to realise that you could be injured yourself. Too short to hold a meeting with yourself about what would be sensible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-8XJVdmSAo

Millroy survived the crash with multiple fractures and a bruised lung. He later wrote that he owed his life entirely to Loek Hartog.

Hartog himself played down what he had done. In an interview about the crash, he said he would like to live in a society where this is not regarded as heroism, but as something normal.

I may find that even more impressive than the footage.

Not because what he did was normal. It clearly was not. If it had been, more cars would have stopped.

But because he does not want to live in a world where we have to call something extraordinary when, to him, it should simply be human.

Everyone was driving the same race. But only one driver understood that the race had changed.

When I Saw the Footage, I Was Back in Crete

Sometime in the 1990s, my then wife and I travelled to Crete. Just a few days away. On the plane, we met two women who worked as nurses in a hospital. We were going to the same resort and decided to share a taxi.

It was dark as we drove through the mountains. The road twisted between high cliffs and deep valleys. Everything felt strange and new. As though we had not merely flown to another country, but entered another reality.

Everyone in the taxi was talking animatedly.

As we approached a bend, a small car passed us at high speed. While our taxi turned into the corner, the car disappeared from my view.

Then I heard a crash.

Nobody reacted.

Everyone kept talking. The driver carried on. Perhaps nobody had seen anything. Perhaps nobody had heard anything. Perhaps that single crash simply did not fit into the conversation that seemed more important at the time.

“Stop!” I shouted.

The taxi continued.

“Stop. Something is wrong.”

Only when I repeated it more forcefully did the driver turn around.

A minute later, we stood at the top of a ravine. The crash barrier appeared intact. There was no car in sight. No movement. No clear reason to assume that anything had happened there.

Until I saw a very faint light far below.

A headlight.

Something was down there.

I Climbed Down, but I Could Not Save Anyone

The descent was steep. More than a hundred metres, I estimated. I slipped, lost my footing and made my way deeper into the darkness. I did not know what I would find at the bottom. I only knew that someone might be there and might need help.

At the bottom was a small Renault 4. It had left the road and fallen into the ravine.

There were people inside and beside the car. The engine was still running. There was a small fire, and I could see fuel leaking.

One man was still alive. He groaned and spoke to me in a language I did not understand. I could not explain that two nurses were standing at the top of the mountain. I could not tell him help was coming. I did not even know whether the people above could hear me shouting.

All I could do was stay with him.

And then I watched the light leave his eyes.

I could not save anyone down there.

That is an important difference between what I did that night and what Loek Hartog did in Shanghai. I do not tell this story to place myself beside him. Loek pulled a man from a burning car and saved his life. I climbed down into a ravine and could no longer save anyone.

But when I saw him stop, I recognised the moment when the journey you are making suddenly ceases to be the most important thing.

We were on our way to a resort. We had a destination, luggage in the boot and plans for the days ahead. But from the moment I heard that crash, that journey no longer existed for me.

You do not help only when you know for certain that you can save someone.

You help because carrying on has become impossible.

What Race Are You Running?

Most of us will never race a Porsche around a circuit. We will probably never stand beside a ravine in the dark either.

But we are all running a race.

For success. Money. Recognition. Being right. A career. A business that has to grow. A position we do not want to lose. A mortgage that has to be paid. A reputation we have built.

But those are the visible races.

There are also races for which no starting gun was ever fired. A life you started leading because you thought that was what you were supposed to do. A route that gradually emerged from expectations, responsibility, fear, loyalty and the need not to disappoint anyone.

Perhaps you once chose a degree because your parents thought it was sensible. You found a good job, and the next step automatically became the logical one. Before you knew it, you had a career that looked perfectly right from the outside but felt less and less like yours on the inside.

Perhaps you are keeping a business afloat that once gave you freedom but now dictates how you live every day. You call it responsibility because there are employees, clients and obligations. Perhaps that is true. But responsibility can be a reason to stay and an excuse never to ask yourself honestly whether you still want this life.

Perhaps you remain in a relationship because you once promised not to give up. Perhaps you are the person in your family who solves everything, and you do not dare admit that you no longer know what to do. Perhaps you are the leader who must always be strong, the father who is never allowed to collapse, the mother who keeps everyone together or the partner who continually adapts to keep the peace.

Not every race takes us towards something we want to achieve.

Some races take us away from guilt, shame, rejection or the fear that people will no longer need us once we stop performing.

And we keep running some races because we no longer know who we would be if we stepped out.

“Sometimes you are not racing towards a finish line you chose yourself. You are racing towards one you have come to believe you must reach.” - Ben Steenstra

Why Carrying On Usually Does Not Feel Like a Decision

Stopping is visible.

You have to brake. Change course. Open a door. Interrupt something. Other people can see that you are no longer doing what, only seconds earlier, you intended to do.

Carrying on appears to require nothing.

You follow the bend. Maintain the same speed. Watch the car in front and do what everyone else is doing. That is why continuing does not feel like a new decision. It feels like the absence of a decision.

Perhaps that is why people can remain for so long in a life that no longer feels right.

Everyone works hard, so you cannot be overworked. Everyone has doubts, so yours do not have to mean anything. Every marriage has difficult years, so you do not have to truly listen to what has disappeared between you. Every entrepreneur carries responsibility, so apparently that pressure in your chest is simply part of it.

Everyone carries on.

So do you.

Psychologists call part of this the diffusion of responsibility. When more bystanders are present, it becomes easier for each individual to assume that someone else will act.

The well-known bystander effect is real, but the story is more nuanced than the popular belief that people routinely do nothing in emergencies. A large meta-analysis of the bystander effect found that the effect actually becomes weaker when danger is clear and severe. In a study of 219 real public conflicts in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and South Africa, at least one bystander intervened in nine out of ten incidents.

I find that reassuring.

But it does not make the question any smaller.

Someone still has to be the first to stop.

Sometimes It Is Not Only Someone Else You Pass By

When we think about helping, we often imagine grand gestures. A burning vehicle. An accident. Someone visibly calling for help.

In daily life, the signals are rarely that clear.

An employee grows quieter and starts delivering things just a little later. A friend makes the same joke for the third time about how badly he is doing. Your partner tries to tell you something but keeps choosing the wrong moment because you still have a meeting, deadline or problem to deal with. Your child does not literally ask for attention but becomes more difficult at precisely the moments when you have no space to give it.

Perhaps you do see it.

But you carry on a little longer.

Not because you are a bad person. Because you are in the middle of your own race. Because stopping has consequences. Because truly looking may mean having to do something for which you have no time, energy or answer.

And sometimes the person you are passing is not someone else.

Sometimes it is you.

Your body, which has been trying for months to tell you it cannot continue. The work that once gave you meaning and now only drains your energy. A life that contains almost everything on paper, except you. You feel that something is wrong, but you carry on because your diary is full and the outside world still regards your life as a success.

The longer you follow the same route, the easier it becomes to call it your destination.

Leadership Begins When the Assignment Changes

We like to associate leadership with vision, conviction and the ability to bring others with us. But sometimes leadership becomes visible without a speech, a strategy or a job title.

Loek Hartog did not wait for permission. He did not first check who was formally responsible for the rescue. He saw that the original assignment no longer mattered.

Racing was no longer the most important thing.

I have written before that natural authority arises when words, behaviour and intention align. On that circuit, there was no time for words. Only behaviour remained.

That is leadership in its barest form.

Not carrying out yesterday’s agreement as quickly as possible, but recognising that reality demands something different today. Not continuing to steer towards targets while a team is falling apart. Not defending a procedure while a customer, employee or human being disappears between the lines. Not saying someone else is responsible when you are the one who sees what is happening.

A leader is not always the person who wins the race.

Sometimes it is the person who first understands that winning can no longer be the objective.

Who Are You When There Is No Time Left to Think About It?

Almost everyone believes they would stop.

So do I.

But nobody knows for certain what they will do when a car in front of them erupts into flames. Some people act. Others freeze. Still others may not fully register what is happening because their attention remains fixed on their own speed, danger and route.

Character, then, is not the answer you give when someone calmly asks what you would do.

Character is what remains when you no longer have time to formulate a good answer.

Loek said he acted on instinct. But perhaps instinct is not created in that one second. In the interview, he spoke about the people around him and what motorsport had taught him. About being present and recognising when something matters more than racing.

Perhaps instinct is sometimes character shaped over so many years that no deliberation is needed when the decisive moment arrives.

That does not mean you can train yourself to become a hero. It does mean that every small choice matters. Do you look away when something becomes uncomfortable? Do you wait until someone else takes responsibility? Do you follow the group because changing course requires an explanation? Do you remain present when you do not know whether you can truly help?

The moment when everything matters may arrive unexpectedly.

Who you are in that moment does not come from nowhere.

The Other Cars Took the Bend

I keep returning to that one image.

The other cars take the bend. Loek Hartog drives straight ahead.

They continue the race they came to run. He sees a man who may have only seconds left.

Loek did not win his race that day. He did something more important. He recognised that, suddenly, a different race had to be run.

Most of us will never have to make that choice beside a burning Ferrari. Our moments are smaller and therefore easier to ignore.

A phone call you keep postponing.

A conversation for which you never find the right moment.

Someone you have known for a long time is not doing well.

A boundary being crossed while everyone pretends that nothing has changed.

A life that looks good from the outside but from which you are slowly disappearing.

Perhaps you do not have to turn your entire life upside down. Perhaps you only need to stop for a moment. To look. To listen. To acknowledge that the assignment has changed.

The question is not whether you are as brave as Loek Hartog.

The question is who or what you are passing while you are so focused on the finish line.

Who needs you?

What within you has been asking for attention for far too long?

Who decided where your finish line lies?

And if you are completely honest: What race are you running?