Aleix Espargaro says ligaments and a metal plate in his left hand “moved a little bit” when he was struck by debris from Marc Marquez's Honda in his Turn 1 collision with Johann Zarco in Australia.
Zarco was shadowing Marquez down the main Gardner Straight on the run into the Doohan corner in the early stages of the Australian Grand Prix when he ran into the rear of the world champion, launching his Tech3 Yamaha skyward and sending him into a fast slide across the grass.
Both riders were miraculously unharmed in the horror shunt, with Marquez forced to retire due to the damage done to the rear of his RC213V.
Espargaro, who was running just behind the pair, says a “big piece” of Marquez's bike hit him in the left hand he had operated on following a crash at Phillip Island last year, and was left in “quite a lot of pain”.
“On the main straight I couldn't see anything in front of me when Zarco and Marquez collided, but a big piece of Marquez's bike go into my left hand,” the Aprilia rider, who finished ninth, said.
“I was lucky, because it goes into the clutch lever and completely turned it down, but then it impacted my hand in the place where last year I had it operated on.
“Looks like the plate and the ligaments have been moved a little bit, I feel quite a lot of pain right now. I just make the X-ray, and we will see in the next days.”
Second-placed Andrea Iannone – and Espargaro's future Aprilia teammate – was directly behind Zarco and Marquez when they connected and came “really close” to being hit by Zarco's errant Yamaha.
“Really scary, because in this point we are really fast and when I see the bike of Johann stay in the air, he have a very, big, big crash,” the Suzuki man said.
“So I brake really strong to not have contact with the Yamaha of Johann, so I'm really lucky because I was really, really close.
“I don't know why it happen because I don't see the crash on television, but in any case I'm really happy also Marc and Johann are okay.
“This situation could have gone in a really different way, but today we are glad [it didn't].”
Marquez admitted he was initially angry after the clash because he had been hit in the rear, but immediately accepted it as a racing incident when he saw the footage once back in his Honda garage.
