Honda-bound Suzuki rider Joan Mir may have to go under the knife in the off-season after suffering an unexpected case of arm pump in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.
Mir was in the mix for a potential top-five finish but began to fade dramatically before failing to get the bike stopped at Turn 1 on the third-to-last lap and going off.
He explained after the race: “Looks like I had an episode of compartment syndrome, arm pump.
“In the previous years here is a track that normally you can have [arm pump] a little bit because it’s quite demanding, but, you know, not like this.
“I couldn’t understand the pressure that I was doing [on the front brake]I lost all the strength on the right arm, and that’s a bit what happened.
“It’s a shame because the team did a great job and the bike was strong, I was able to be strong.”
The issue, Mir said, bothered him “from more or less half the race”, with the final 10 laps “really a challenge”.
“I was not able to touch the front brake and to put pressure on it,” he said of his off, having subsequently brought the Suzuki GSX-RR home in the 20th place.
“There was a moment that I almost thought to stop, because you know… doesn’t make a lot of sense to ride like this. But you know, I wanted to finish.
“For one part I’m happy because we showed important potential at the beginning of the race, middle, but then these things you can’t control… what makes me sad is that I didn’t see it coming.
“Because normally we were talking with the physio, I always complain a bit about the back or the neck, but I never complain about the arm.
“I want to see the doctor to avoid this happening to me again, because I can’t allow this to happen to me again. It can’t be a reason to finish the weekend like this.”
Asked by The Race whether he’d consider surgery, Mir said: “Yes. Seriously. I think it can be a good option.”
The operation would have to come in the off-season, with Mir set to have his Suzuki farewell next weekend in Valencia before then getting to try the Honda RC213V the following week.
A surgery needn’t necessarily be a massive setback, given the recent example of 2021 champion Fabio Quartararo having needed an arm pump operation in the middle of his title-winning campaign – Quartararo having had the surgery before returning to action at Le Mans less than two weeks later and being back to full fitness soon after.
The Sepang arm pump is the latest gut punch in Mir’s horror season, the 2020 champ having now non-scored in eight of the last 11 MotoGP starts.
He has only recently returned from the ankle injury sustained in his brutal Red Bull Ring crash, and named that spell on the sidelines as a potential contributor to his arm pump alongside other possible explanations.
“Honestly, if you put everything together, and then we think about why we had this problem, we changed front [brake] lever at the beginning of the weekend because I suggested, then also I had some stomach problems that maybe can… I don’t know what can make it a bit worse.
“But maybe a bit of everything caused this big problem.
“Normally during the season I do a lot of motocross, dirt-track, I’m able to train with a lot of bikes. In the previous months I was not able even to train with the motorbike. This for sure maybe create a bit the problem.”