Pol Espargaro's collarbone plated after repeat fracture

Pol Espargaro has already undergone surgery after re-breaking his left collarbone in a Saturday accident at the Aragon MotoGP.

The factory KTM rider previously broke the collarbone at Brno, forcing him to miss the Czech race, plus following Austrian and British Grands Prix weekends, before a comeback last time at Misano.

Pol Espargaro's collarbone plated after repeat fracture

Pol Espargaro has already undergone surgery after re-breaking his left collarbone in a Saturday accident at the Aragon MotoGP.

The factory KTM rider previously broke the collarbone at Brno, forcing him to miss the Czech race, plus following Austrian and British Grands Prix weekends, before a comeback last time at Misano.

But a heavy accident at Turn 15 this morning put him back to square one.

"Pol has had an operation of a fracture of his left collarbone in the evening, that has been fixed with a titanium plate," said KTM team manager Mike Leitner.

"He will remain the next 24 hours at the Hospital Universitario Quirón Dexeus [Barcelona], and he will begin with the functional recovery process in his left shoulder in the next 48 hours.

"The whole team will back him up in this tough period of his career and will do everything to come back even stronger together."

With test rider Mika Kallio injured since July, KTM already had a backlog of 2019 parts for Espargaro to try.

Technical Director Sebastian Risse said: "We are very unhappy and sad about the situation with Pol: it was great to have him back and getting stronger but now he is out again.

"We’re struggling, and it means decisions for 2019 are a little bit upside down; we’ll have to make the best out of it in the next weeks.”

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Bradley Smith, being replaced by Johann Zarco next season, is thus once again KTM's only MotoGP rider.

The Englishman, an Aprilia test rider in 2019, qualified 16th at Aragon after being held-up in Qualifying 1 by other riders waiting for a tow.

"We are disappointed with the situation in Qualifying and we see that riders cruising and looking around can create dangerous situations in other classes. It happened to an extent in MotoGP today," Risse said.

"I guess this is part of racing and led to that result today. We know our pace and we could have been into Q2. Overall this is one of our better qualifications of the season and we’re quite happy with the package."

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