Espargarao suffers fractured radius, out of Aragon MotoGP
Pol Espargaro has sustained a fractured radius in his left wrist in a crash during practice at the Aragon MotoGP and will miss the rest of the weekend for Red Bull KTM.
The Spanish rider had been consistently fighting inside the top 10 throughout practice at Aragon but midway through FP4 he suffered a left wrist fracture in a fall at the reverse corkscrew corner complex after high-siding off his Red Bull KTM.
Pol Espargaro has sustained a fractured radius in his left wrist in a crash during practice at the Aragon MotoGP and will miss the rest of the weekend for Red Bull KTM.
The Spanish rider had been consistently fighting inside the top 10 throughout practice at Aragon but midway through FP4 he suffered a left wrist fracture in a fall at the reverse corkscrew corner complex after high-siding off his Red Bull KTM.
After requiring assistance to get off the track, Espargaro was taken to the circuit medical centre and following a check over it was confirmed he had sustained a fractured radius in his left wrist.
Espargaro will miss the rest of the Aragon MotoGP weekend and has travelled to Barcelona for further medical tests to decide whether he will require surgery. The 28-year-old already faces a race against time to be fit for the next round in Thailand in two weeks.
“We had to try tyres and our plan was the soft and hard with Pol but he crashed on his out-lap with the hard,” Mike Leitner, Red Bull KTM team manager, said. “It’s bad because it looks like there is a fracture in the left wrist but we’ll know the full plan and the next steps once the results come through from Barcelona. He’s unfit for the race and we can only wish him all the best for the moment.”
Espargaro’s absence sees KTM reduced to one factory rider for the remainder of the Aragon MotoGP in Mika Kallio who replaced the axed Johann Zarco this weekend. Kallio will see out the rest of the 2019 MotoGP campaign in place of Zarco.
If Espargaro is ruled unfit for the next round in Thailand, KTM could try to call on test rider Dani Pedrosa but the Spaniard rejected a previous offer to replace Zarco for the rest of the season as he preferred to remain as test rider with the Austrian manufacturer.
Last year KTM also endured a fitness crisis when both Espargaro and Kallio were ruled out of action for the British round. The Austrian brand called on Loris Baz to race alongside regular rider Bradley Smith at Silverstone, but the race was eventually cancelled due to unsafe track conditions.
