Franco Morbidelli injury “pretty strange, Marc Marquez told me how he found me”

Franco Morbidelli has spoken about the scary injury suffered before MotoGP preseason testing.

Morbidelli missed the entirety of official testing after crashing a Panigale V4 on a WorldSBK test day at Portimao alongside fellow Ducati MotoGP riders.

He was knocked unconscious and hospitalised, but has been passed fit to race at this weekend’s season-opening Qatar MotoGP.

Asked in Qatar how the crash occurred, Morbidelli insisted it was “not clear”.

He was quoted by Autosport: “It was an out-lap. The injury is pretty strange and the crash was pretty strange.

"But I don't remember, not clear images. I'm just happy that everything went like it went.

“Portimao is a rollercoaster. It's a particular track and can be very dangerous sometimes. But it's very fun and very dangerous, as this sport is.

"There are some upgrades on the gravel but I never touched Portimao's gravel in my life.

"I swear. Even the last time I didn't touch the gravel. Just touched the tarmac, pretty strongly with my head."

Marc Marquez and Alex Marquez, who were on track at the same time, were the first to his aid.

Morbidelli described: "There have been worse parts in the injury.

“The story of it, for example. I spoke with Marc and he told me how he found me on the track and what was going on.

"There have been worse scenes of this injury.

"The happy part of it is nothing that everybody was afraid was going to happen happened. Thank god.

“The happy part was to recover from it and try to prepare a season on the bike that I could prepare a season on."

Morbidelli hasn’t been able to ride a motorcycle since.

He makes his Pramac Ducati debut this weekend, having switched from Yamaha.

But unlike Francesco Bagnaia, Enea Bastianini and Jorge Martin he hasn’t been able to yet adapt to the GP24.

Morbidelli insisted: "I'm feeling very good. It has been a particular pre-season for me without testing.

“This year the testing was probably the most important of all the years I have been in MotoGP because it's a completely new bike and it's a particularly high-competition championship.

"But that's the situation and we are going to recover from it in the best way, which is to take it calmly in the early stages and try to make, to keep the rhythm outside of the track and don't stress too much if the things are not coming because we know that I need to learn a lot of things in this small amount of time."