Johann Zarco has spoken for the first time about the horrific crash he suffered on Sunday at the restart of the Catalan Grand Prix.
Starting fifth on the grid, having brilliantly managed to hold on to his qualifying position in the first part of the race, Zarco didn’t get past the first corner at the restart.
“I was sucked in by Marini and couldn’t stop in time to avoid him”, the LCR MotoGP rider told French newspaper L’Equipe. He then found himself hooked onto Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati. “I went tumbling with his bike, with my left leg trapped between the wheel, the seat and the exhaust.”
In an extremely rare sequence of events, Zarco found himself catapulted by the out-of-control Ducati into the gravel trap, clinging to it by his left foot, which remained wedged in the gap where it had become stuck.
When the bike finally came to a halt, the Frenchman was lying on his back, his leg trapped in the Ducati. He immediately received assistance from Bagnaia and Luca Marini, who understood the gravity of the situation, as well as from the marshals who swarmed onto the run-off area in no time.
Zarco remained conscious, but the pain was excruciating. “I was stuck in the gravel trap, screaming out of pain, my leg was starting to burn, and everyone who gathered around me was afraid of touching me, lest they made my injuries worse,” he recounted.
“So I pulled on my leg, and they eventually helped me. They immobilised me, cut my leathers open, gave me an IV to stop the pain… I’d never been through anything like it, and it was absolutely terrifying.”
In just over 10 minutes, an ambulance evacuated the French rider to the circuit’s medical centre and then to hospital. He himself who, later that evening, revealed the extent of his injuries: a “minor fracture” of the fibula, near the ankle that had become trapped in the Ducati, but above all damage to the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments and the medial meniscus of his left knee.
Zarco blames himself for taking the second start
Johann Zarco escaped with injuries to his knee and near his left ankle
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / Getty Images
Following this spectacular crash, some figures in the championship questioned whether the starting grid was too far from the first corner at the Barcelona circuit, allowing the bikes to build up too much speed before the pack dived to the right, and some even questioned the riders’ recklessness.
Looking back, Zarco simply regrets having taken that second start, knowing that he had earlier been hit by debris in the major crash involving Alex Marquez and Pedro Acosta, which had led to the race being red-flagged. His left foot was “hurting like crazy”, which explains why he used the short half-hour break to try and soothe a developing bruise with ice.
“My foot was already purple”, he explained. “We put ice on the bruise and the pain eased a bit. That’s when I should have made the decision to pull out. The footage of Alex’s crash that blow to my foot really took my mind out of it. I wasn’t no longer ‘connected’ when we lined up on the grid again.”
And the Frenchman admitted: “I’m kicking myself for taking that second start…”
After a night in hospital in Barcelona, Zarco returned to France on Monday afternoon. He will be treated in Lyon by Dr Bertrand Sonnery-Cottet, a knee specialist, ahead of surgery later this week.
For the first time in his long career, the 2025 French Grand Prix winner is preparing for a long recovery, the duration of which he will only know once the doctors have operated.
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