1691464720 Pol Espargaro returns after four month injury with his brain blocked

Pol Espargaró returns after four-month injury with his brain blocked: ‘My brain wasn’t working fast enough’

Pol Espargaro returns after four month injury with his brain blocked

For Pol Espargaró (Granollers, 32 years old) it was more than four months of hard work, much suffering and waiting. This weekend, at the British GP, he finally felt like a racer again. His battered body hasn’t yet allowed him to unleash the full rhythm he’s had in the past, but he had to pull himself together and dodge the pain, which was enough for him to get his GasGas into the points, a twelfth place, which for him tastes of glory Return to the MotoGP World Championship. Because there were times when he didn’t know if he would get back on his bike. On March 24, during the first practice session of the Portuguese GP, a violent impact with the tarmac and crash barriers caused serious injuries. He feared for his life. And later for his professional career.

“The fall was terrifying. When you see it, you have to think about many things. You sign a contract when you come here to compete and you know it can happen. You see everything far away as if it weren’t happening to you, but it can happen to you,” he thought on Thursday, the only calm day of his intense return to competition. On Friday he quickly realized that it would be very difficult to regain his footing at more than 300 km/h. “The brain was ready. “I had never slept between training sessions and this time I had to take a one-hour nap between the two training sessions because I was overworked,” he admitted after his first contact with the track.

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The challenge was both physical and mental. “It was one of the most stressful days of my career. My brain wasn’t working fast enough for all the information it was receiving. Then you realize how fast this bike is and how fast everything comes. It’s crazy,” he said. The rest night and downpour on Saturday made Espargaró feel more comfortable on the bike on day two. The rain slowed the fiendish pace of the competition and allowed him to perform well in qualifying and the sprint race, where he finished sixteenth ahead of champions like Joan Mir, Marc Márquez and Fabio Quartararo.

It was dry anyway, but things got complicated again on Sunday. “At the beginning of the race I had some speed and I was enjoying it, but suddenly my body locked up. I think he woke up from all the injuries and that was his way of saying, ‘That’s enough for today.’ My neck was also blocked and it occurred to me to stop,” explained Pol, who is due to fractures in the Neck and three vertebrae, the two most sensitive injuries in a part that cannot be summarized, it took him so long to come back four lines which includes a broken jaw which forced him to keep his mouth shut for four weeks . He lost nine kilos in weight.

Whilst not fighting for a tangible result in that final race, the onset of the glistening rain gave the rider a renewed boost, proving he had retained the competitive instinct that had driven him until his return. “When some started on dry track I saw an opportunity to score points and decided to continue on track with dry tires. “It’s good to be 12th, but it was very difficult,” he concluded.

The hope for Espargaró, Aleix’s little brother and winner of this ninth event on the Silverstone calendar, is to recover more of his body and head to the next round of the competition, which takes place in Austria in two weeks’ time. Elite competition doesn’t even forgive injuries, and the dance of the seats in the market forces the GasGas runner to regain their best version if they want to stay among the best for another year. Despite having a contract, the safe arrival of Moto2 prodigy Pedro Acosta will force KTM to ditch one of its riders for 2024. “If I want to stay, I’ll have to give up,” Pol admitted on British soil without a time to lick his wounds.

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