‘Aron Canet’s superhuman comeback? You don’t do it for money, you do it to feel alive’

Fantic team manager and former grand prix racer Roberto Locatelli has paid tribute to Aron Canet’s ‘superhuman’ comeback from injury at Le Mans.

After suffering a peroneal malleolus fracture in his left foot during practice for the Spanish Moto2 Grand Prix at Jerez on April 26, Canet underwent surgery in Barcelona.

After two weeks of intense rehabilitation, he was passed fit to ride at Le Mans on May 10-12.

But Canet didn’t just ride.

The Portimao winner stunned by taking pole position on Saturday, then defied the pain in his foot to fight from ninth on the opening lap of the grand prix to reach second place by lap 7 of 22.

Canet held the runner-up until three laps to go, when he could no longer hold off the onslaught from behind. The Spaniard was eventually pushed back to sixth place, in the thick of a five-rider battle for second position.

“I will try to explain what you live as a rider,” said 2000 125cc world champion Locatelli, when asked to describe Canet’s efforts. “The leathers have changed, but there is still the same ‘beast’ inside – the rider.”

Recalling his most serious accident, in 2007, Locatelli said: “When I woke up from a coma I had an issue on my ankle, an external fixator was used to stabilise the fractures. I was in a wheelchair but when I saw Doctor Costa, I asked him straight away when I would be able to jump on my bike again.

“I guess that Aron Canet experienced the same feeling. Like Marc Márquez in 2020, when he attempted a comeback in Jerez just a week after breaking his humerus but was unable to race. 

"[Like] Jorge Lorenzo at the Dutch TT, who returned on track after injuring his collarbone in Thursday's Free Practice, finishing fifth in the race. Another time in Assen, Loris Capirossi also raced with a fractured hand. They all proved the same point.

“We are riders and when you become a professional, you dedicate your life to it. It becomes that one thing that makes you feel alive. When you are forced to sit out [a grand prix], it is normal that you want to be back at it as soon as possible.

“Because as a racer, the way to feel ‘normal‘, is to ride a bike. You don’t do it for the money, you do it to feel alive.

“And this is why, even after a very bad accident, we feel sad but not scared. You don’t lose courage; the fascination does not disappear. You don’t stop loving what it means to be a rider.”

‘Aron Canet did something superhuman’

The Italian added: “Aron Canet did something superhuman in my eyes, as I am no longer a rider, but I do understand how he was capable of doing it.

“Did he surprise me? Yes, because you never know how prepared and ready you can be. It was not his comeback two weeks after surgery that surprised me, but the pole came as a surprise… the fact that even with physical issues, with a broken leg, he did the fastest lap time.

“Of course, this does not mean that he would go twice as fast if he was fit, but it still shows just how strong he is. I was amazed by his pole position and by the way he managed the race, running in second until the final laps and fighting for a podium he missed out on in the end, and that was probably more related to the complicated start than to his race management.”

“What Aron Canet did was something extraordinary and the world took notice of it – not just of the fact that racers are capable of doing these things, but the fact that Aron is one of them.

“He belongs to these world-class riders,” Locatelli concluded.

Canet, the only Kalex rider to win a race so far this season, heads to this weekends Catalunya round holding sixth in the world championship.