I read the books on some plane flights I had for work a while back, to break the boredom, and always wondered "what would have been" if he didn't have a few of the crashes he has had.
You can what if with anyone, but San Dimas sucked. As did the slide-out in Paris-Roubaix.
One calculus I don't get even after reading the book is the whole "I lost 20 seconds sliding on my ass, I'm giving up and going to the team car so I can be a better team mate being ready for the bus ride out of here".