Ai Ogura underwent surgery on his left thumb in Barcelona—Team Manager Davide Brivio speaks candidly about the chances of a comeback at Misano
Ai Ogura is the big absentee at MotorLand Aragon this race weekend. The third-place rider in the World Championship injured his left thumb during motocross training in Japan.
The Trackhouse Aprilia rider has since returned to Europe. On Thursday morning, he underwent surgery in Barcelona performed by Dr. Xavier Mir. Team Principal Davide Brivio provided an update on his rider to MotoGP.com.
“Unfortunately, he had a very minor crash while riding motocross in Japan. He broke his left hand—the first metacarpal bone of his left thumb,” says Brivio, noting that the original plan had been for Ogura to race at Aragon.
“At first, it looked like he might be back in a couple of weeks, so he traveled from Japan to Spain with the intention of coming to Aragon. Then he had an appointment with Dr. Mir in Barcelona.”
“And there, they basically determined that he needed surgery to speed up his recovery. So that happened this morning, and now we’ll just have to wait and see, of course.”
Ogura has a follow-up appointment 72 hours after the surgery. He’ll stay in Barcelona for now to begin rehabilitation. The Trackhouse team hopes he’ll be able to race again at the next round in Misano.
MotoGP will be on the Adriatic coast from September 11–13. At this point, however, it’s not certain whether Ogura will be able to return to racing in just two weeks.
“I’m not a doctor, of course,” says Brivio, “but experience—even looking at other riders—usually shows that they were able to ride again after a few weeks, but it varies from case to case.”
“So it’s too early to say, but the goal is to have him ready to race again by Misano. Let’s see how things develop over the coming week.”
Brivio isn’t thinking about the World Championship chances
Going into the race weekend in Aragon, Ogura is third in the World Championship standings. The injury layoff is a setback for his World Championship ambitions. “Yes, of course it’s disappointing,” Brivio sighs, “it’s sad because we had good momentum.”
“I mean, overall, we as a team—Ai and Raul as well—had good momentum, and it’s a shame and sad to break that momentum. As far as the championship goes, we know, of course, that we’ll lose points.”
“But that’s okay; we’re not dwelling on it too much. To be honest, unfortunately, all the top-4 or top-5 riders have had some issues here and there this year, so that’s just part of the game.”
Ogura holds a lead of just three World Championship points over Marc Marquez (Ducati) and four over Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46-Ducati). Teammate Raul Fernandez trails by 19 points. Ogura could drop back to sixth place.
His competitors are wishing him a speedy recovery. “We wish him the best,” says Marc Marquez. “He’s strong and fast, so he’ll be back at the same speed soon.”
Jorge Martin echoes that sentiment: “I hope he feels well after the surgery and that he comes back soon. We always want the strongest riders on the track. I hope he recovers well.”
In Aragon, Ogura will be replaced by Lorenzo Savadori. The Aprilia test rider hasn’t ridden the 1,000cc bike since his wildcard appearance in Jerez at the end of April. Since then, he has been working exclusively with the new 850cc prototype for 2027.
This means Fernandez won’t have Ogura as a reference in the pit box either. “In the races I watched, I tried to understand how he managed the tires in the final part of the race,” said the Spaniard.
“So here I don’t have the data to understand that, but anyway, I think I still have good information from Aprilia. We have to exploit the bike’s maximum potential.”
