KTM junior reveals "worst thing" about horror Sepang Moto3 crash 12 months on

Jose Antonio Rueda has picked out the “worst thing” about the injuries he picked up in his huge Sepang Moto3 crash last year.

Rueda crashed on the warm-up lap when he hit the back of Noah Dettwiler’s bike on the exit of turn three. 

Both were taken to hospital with serious injuries. Rueda was the one with the quicker departure from hospital, but his season was over only shortly after he’d become Moto3 world champion in Indonesia.

Rueda now says that it was the idea of returning to racing that was his biggest motivation in recovery, as well as his father.

“In the recovery, the thing that pushed me to keep going was riding again on the bike,” said Rueda in a video posted to Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Instagram page.

“When I ride with the bike I enjoy a lot, so especially that.

“My father always said to me ‘Never give up’. For him, I’m never thinking about giving up in one moment.”

Rueda added that the worst part of his recovery was the tension in his neck and shoulder which created a lot of uncertainty about his timeline.

“The worst thing was the tension of the nerves that I had on the neck and on the shoulder,” he said.

“I could not lift up the arm. For me, this was the worst point because I didn’t know if, with time, I could recover again.”

The crash had knock-on effects to his rookie Moto2 campaign, with surgeries continuing into the 2026 season.

“In this class [Moto2], everything is so close,” Rueda said.

“The details and the small changes make a big difference and can help you to make steps forward. 

“So, without the preseason, with all the surgeries during the season, it’s difficult to keep the rhythm because in the third and fourth races of the season I needed to make the surgery in the arm because I had arm pump and I could not ride the bike. 

“Then the hand again because we removed all the material that I had. 

“But it’s not an excuse for me to say that I lost the preseason, or [had] all the surgeries, because in this class you have to adapt in every condition. 

“So, for me, it’s not an excuse to say that I lost the preseason or whatever. It’s more, I need to learn like a rider and keep going. “