Aleix Espargaro “almost crying”: “It's amazing what Pol did”

Aleix Espargaro admitted he was “almost crying” when watching younger brother Pol secure direct Q2 access on his return to the Portimao circuit, where he suffered a career-changing accident in 2023.

Pol was left with eight fractures to his neck, vertebrae, ribs and jaw, plus a lung injury, after striking an unprotected barrier in practice.

“When I was in the ICU in hospital, I had so many fractures I couldn't feel which one was more painful. The pain level was sky high, it was so much,” Pol Espargaro said after the accident.

The vertebrae damage left him 1.5cm shorter, while the jaw injury required his mouth to be wired shut for a month.

“My mouth was not even 1mm open. For four weeks, I was just drinking soups and losing like 2.5kg of muscle per week. This was insane.

“I looked in the mirror, and it was not my face, not my body. You do not recognise yourself, and that was hard.”

Although Pol returned for the second half of the 2023 season, he was far from fit and agreed to make way for Pedro Acosta by switching to a KTM test and wild-card role from 2024.

When KTM’s financial crisis forced the cancellation of wild-cards this year, Pol looked set to miss an entire MotoGP season for the first time since his 2014 debut.

But the 34-year-old was called up to replace injured Tech3 KTM rider Maverick Vinales for five rounds, the last of which meant a return to Portimao.

“It's amazing what Pol is doing,” said older brother Aleix, who signed up as a HRC MotoGP test rider this season. 

“It's a completely different story [between us]. I decided to stop. I don't have the fire inside of me. I try to do my job as good as possible [but] I don't want really to go to this very high risk.

“Pol is a completely different story. He's a super-talented rider. He still has the fire inside. He never said, ‘I want to stop racing’. And he wants to prove, not to everybody, but himself that after the big crash, he's still fast. And I think he proved it.

“It's amazing what he did. I talked with him every single day, after every session. And I applaud him a lot, because what he did, especially in Portimao - for me, after the first day when he went to Q2 directly, I was almost crying.

“For me, it was one of the hardest days of my life. And to do it the way that he did - super brave, amazing.”

After an early FP1 fall, Pol returned to finish the morning session in fifth, then claimed direct Q2 access with ninth in the afternoon.

“He said to himself, ‘I’ll do it’. He was super, super relaxed, super happy with himself,” Aleix continued. “It was like a super important test for him. Not to prove anything to anybody else, but just to himself.

“Because after the crash, he was back racing with the GAS-GAS - he had no strength. I was with him at home. He had no strength in the [injured] half of the body.

“He could not raise up his arm. I think he was not really fit to race. And he was slow, and crashing a lot. So he had doubts about himself. But once he recovered, he proved this year that he's still fast.”

Pol reached Q2 in four of his five replacement appearances and claimed top-ten finishes in all but one grand prix.

It was the strongest dry form by any wild-card or replacement rider this season, and also saw the former KTM and Honda MotoGP podium finisher linked with a full-time seat in WorldSBK.

Aleix, who made five MotoGP appearances for Honda this season, believes Pol made the right call by staying in his current role.

“During the summer break, we talked a lot about it,” Aleix said of Pol joining WorldSBK.

 “After his first replacement, where he did a really good race in Balaton, he had this chance, and he thought a lot about what to do.

“I gave my point of view. I don't know, he was close, but at the same time, then KTM showed him that they really need him for testing.

“Maybe at the beginning of the season he felt not super happy, because they had not many tests, they had no wild-cards. So this is why he doubted a little bit.

“But - this is just my opinion, and opinions can be different - to be a test rider with a big factory, at this point of our career, for me is better than racing in Superbike.

“I mean, everybody can choose their future, but I think Pol took the right one.

“And these races just gave him more credibility inside of KTM.”