Morbidelli injured, left hand fractured: will miss the Valencia test

Morbidelli injured before the start of the MotoGP race in Valencia: no test for him.

What happened to Franco Morbidelli today at the Ricardo Tormo circuit was truly surprising. As he lined up on the grid for the start of the race, he bumped into Aleix Espargaro’s Honda and fell. An extremely rare incident in MotoGP and in racing in general. Yet it happened, with physical consequences for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 rider.

Valentino Rossi’s team announced that Morbidelli has been diagnosed with a fracture of the fifth metacarpal in his left hand. He will miss Tuesday’s test and will not take part in media activities today. A rough end to the 2025 MotoGP season for the Roman rider.

Morbidelli has more than one previous run-in with Aleix Espargaro, though this time Espargaro bears no responsibility. Unfortunately, an unexpected situation occurred and the 2017 Moto2 champion even got injured. His presence at the Valencia test would have been important, but he won’t be there. The focus now is on recovery from the injury; he’ll certainly be at 100% for the Sepang test scheduled for early February 2026.

He will be one of the many riders with expiring contracts and will be called upon to deliver a great season to stay in MotoGP. In the recent past he ruled out a move to Superbike, but he could end up changing his mind if things don’t go well. We’ll see how Franky fares: he finished this championship seventh overall, behind his teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio. Two podiums in full-length races and two more in sprint races. He hoped to do a bit better; he’ll try again in 2026 with the Ducati Desmosedici GP25.