“Do not eat for 4 weeks”: Pol Espargaro back after horror crash

The 32-year-old motorcycle racer, who works for KTM, had a bad fall at the end of March at the season opener in Portimao. Two weeks after his comeback at Silverstone, Espargaro is now attacking again at the weekend in Spielberg. “I couldn’t eat for four weeks, I lost a lot of weight,” he described his suffering.

The former Moto2 World Champion lost eight kilograms of muscle mass and had to deal with even more delicate problems in addition to a contused lung, a fractured jaw and a total of eight broken bones – including vertebrae. “He fought for three days, having to throw up because he was sick. It was a disaster,” said KTM sports director Pit Beirer. “He had moments when it was all or nothing.”

At the start in Portugal, Espargaro, who is under contract with the KTM factory team GasGas until 2024, was thrown off his motorcycle during training and crashed into the barrier. The race doctors thought a comeback was impossible, and the broken vertebrae cast doubt on the racing future of Aleix Espargaro’s younger brother. However, thanks to the support of his wife, Pol Espargaro fought his way back and finished twelfth again at Silverstone.

He had previously visited the KTM team in Mugello. “It was very emotional to have the guy in the pits. There were tears in my eyes several times,” said Beirer about Espargaro’s return and looked back at the race weekend in Styria. “In Spielberg he doesn’t have to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, he should take two or three more races and build everything up.”