Amidst a fierce battle for the MotoGP title, Francesco Bagnaia suffered a spectacular highside at the start of the Catalunya GP – an incident that took him out of the rest of that race. The impact raised fears of a worst sceneario, but the truth was, days later, he was racing in the San Marino GP as if nothing had happened.
Now that the season has ended, the Ducati man revealed to the championship’s official website that he faced significant physical challenges after the crash, but at the time, he concealed the full extent of what he was feeling:
– It was one of the hardest, toughest moments of my career. The day after Barcelona I woke up and I was destroyed, completely. I couldn’t even move from the bed. So it wasn’t easy. But we pushed a lot mentally. And one thing that we preferred not to don’t do it was sharing too much my feeling to the media, to the people. Because people can’t understand everything and I don’t want to have any excuse.
Enduring and facing adversities are also part of a champion’s mission, especially in a season as fiercely contested as 2023. Following the crash in Barcelona, Bagnaia missed the podium only once when he retired from the Indian GP – resisting against a strong Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) who was also performing exceptionally well during that period.