Bagnaia breaks silence on “luck” and comeback date as he exits hospital

• Update on Francesco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini injuries after Catalunya MotoGP

Bagnaia highsided on the first lap then, when he landed on the ground, his legs were struck by Brad Binder’s KTM.

He was rushed away to hospital but it has since been confirmed that he suffered no major damage.

“I had a lot of luck today. I have to be thankful,” Bagnaia said as he left hospital in Barcelona on crutches.

“Sometimes you need to have luck.”

Asked how he highsided, Bagnaia replied: “I don’t know. I had very low grip on the warm-up lap.

“And I just took a very big hit. It was not a normal highside.

“It’s very hard to understand what happened at the moment.

“For sure, it wasn’t a normal crash.

“The rear grip that I had in the warm-up lap wasn’t normal.”

Astonishingly the factory Ducati rider could return to continue the defence of his MotoGP championship next weekend.

“We’ll do everything we can to be in Misano, and to do well,” he said.

Bagnaia remains at the summit of the MotoGP standings, aiming for a second title in a row.

His teammate Enea Bastianini, though, will need surgery after a separate crash at the Catalunya MotoGP just moments before Bagnaia’s.

Every rider dedicated their performance to Bagnaia as he lay in hospital post-race, with Marc Marquez insisting that the entire sport was lucky that no serious harm came to him.

Bagnaia was able to fly back to Italy on Sunday night.