Espargaro will have surgery on Tuesday after Le Mans crash

Aleix Espargaro will undergo surgery in Barcelona on Tuesday after rupturing a ligament in his right thumb after his frightening crash on Saturday at Le Mans.

The procedure will be carried out by Dr Mir in Barcelona, the same doctor who operated on Marc Marquez after the champion broke his little finger earlier this month, and Espargaro will be kept in hospital overnight with no timeframe offered by Suzuki on his recuperation period.

“Aleix suffered a rupture in the ulnar collateral ligament of the metacarpophalangeal joint of the right thumb, confirmed by ultrasound and x-rays,” said Mir. “This injury causes joint instability and therefore a surgical repair is necessary.”

Espargaro rode through the pain to make it through to QP2 on Saturday but suffered a clutch failure in yesterday’s race and told the media afterwards that he would return home to evaluate his injuries. When asked to sum up a difficult weekend Espargaro said:

“Of course I’m really disappointed for the weekend,” said the Spaniard. “When something has a bad start it usually ends up bad as well! I had a minor crash on Friday and then the huge crash on Saturday; nothing broken but I didn’t really feel well and finally I had the technical issue on my machine on Sunday. I had a good start, but I immediately felt the bike was not performing as well as it usually does and finally I had to retire at the very beginning of the race because it was impossible to go beyond the second lap.”