IT doesn’t take a genius to tell that MotoGP is a dangerous way to make a living. Notoriously tricky to ride bikes, insanely high top speeds and wheel-to-wheel action from lights to flag - it’s all part of the appeal for many fans.
The Italian GP from Mugello was one event that took its toll on the field, as two racers are sidelined from the next Sachsenring event, and another is looking like he might not be 100 percent fit to race.
The big-name MotoGP stars out of the German GP
Alex Rins is the first name that will be missing from the starting lineup, having severely broken his leg at Mugello during the sprint race. The crash wasn’t televised, although it seems he fell at the super-fast Arrabbiata corner on lap four of eleven. His leg is now being given time to heal and has his tibia and fibula immobilised via an external fixator. The crash has been particularly costly for Rins, who took a stunning win at COTA earlier this season, as it rules him out of the next round at Sachsenring and the following race from Assen. Rins currently sits just outside the top ten in the championship standings, and missing these next two events will make the journey back inside that group all the more difficult.
Next up we have the 2020 MotoGP champion Joan Mir who has damaged his right hand and has withdrawn from the race in order to heal. His injury, on the face of it at least, sounds less severe than that of Rins, although given that he has fluid building up in the hand he uses on the throttle of the bike, he and the team are taking no chances of causing further damage.
The third rider who needs a mention is Aleix Espargaro, who put in a herculean effort to even finish the race in Italy last weekend and managed to bag a tidy sixth-placed finish in the process. Espargaro’s crash is, by far, the strangest of them all, though, and didn’t take place during the racing, or even on a motorcycle. The factory Aprilia rider is reported to have crashed on his bicycle while cycling the Mugello circuit on the Thursday before racing took place. He was riding the circuit during foggy conditions and apparently was looking at his phone at the same time, something that Espargaro is pinning the blame on. While there is no reason to believe that the Spaniard will pull out of the upcoming German Grand Prix (before which it has been confirmed on 15 June that Espargaro suffered two foot fractures in the Mugello cycling crash) given how much pain he was in during and after his sessions in Mugello, he's likely still going to be feeling sub-optimal.
One rider who we should (and recently probably would) have to note is Marc Marquez, who like the other riders on this list did also crash out at Mugello, but thankfully avoided any kind of injury. Given Marquez’ recent trend of crashing hard and opening up old wounds, and the fate of his fellow Honda-mounted Spaniards in Mugello, he’s probably going into the Sachsenring round (which is a track he’s famously successful at) counting his lucky stars!
