Espargaro lucky to avoid further injury after Petrucci clash

Aleix Espargaro had a lucky escape at Mugello after the Suzuki rider was punted out of the race by an out of control Danilo Petrucci. The Italian had a gearbox failure and it left him in neutral and couldn’t avoid Espargaro under braking into turn one. After the race Espargaro confirmed that he was physically OK and had avoided any further injury to his hand injury for which he recently underwent surgery.

“I was lucky, it was a big crash because Petrucci hit me very fast but at least I’m ok,” said Espargaro. “It was difficult to understand the situation, I was starting to brake and he hit me very hard from the back of my bike and I just flew off so I was very lucky not to hurt my hand.  I was in race direction with Petrucci, he knew what he did and said sorry ten times.

“There is nothing I can do, it is race direction’s job but he has to be more careful because he cannot hit me like this because it can be very dangerous. He also hit Aoyama in Argentina. My hand was good in the one lap we raced, we just had bad luck! In Le Mans we had a problem with the bike, my very big crash in the practice and then here I get hit so hopefully my luck will change in Barcelona.”

After finishing ninth Petrucci apologised to Espargaro but confirmed that he had a mechanical problem and could do nothing to avoid contact.

“I am very sorry for the contact with Aleix,” said Petrucci. “Unfortunately I had a problem with the gearbox that that made me lengthen braking and being unable to avoid the contact. I understand he is very angry, that’s why I apologized. But telemetry confirms the problem I had.”