One rider who particularly appreciates Toprak Razgatlioglu's 'fantastic' achievement in overcoming a serious lung injury to win last year’s WorldSBK title is former Red Bull Rookies rival Joan Mir.

It’s almost a forgotten moment in Mir’s career, but the future MotoGP champion was hospitalised during his rookie premier-class ꧟season after a huge testing accident at B꧋rno in August 2019.

A technical failure caused Mir to lose control of his Suzuki into Turn 1 at 300km/h, the resulting accident sending his GSX-RR over the trackside barriers while ambula🌺nces rushed to attend to Mir.

Mir was airlifted to a local hospital where a ‘pulmonary contusion’ to his lungs was diagnosed. Upon returning to Spain, 🥀he was transferred directly to another hospital in Barcelona for further treatment.

“I was in the ICU. I remember that after one week, I started to stand up. It took that long,” Mir, now a factory Honda rider, told ltxcn.top.

“The thing is we didn't make a lot of media, the cameras 🐟were not filming what really happened.

"We didn't make a documentary! But that doesn't m🅷ean it ♛was not hard!” he smiled.

After m🎐issing two events, Mir returned to MotoGP action and later claimed the 🌊best result of his rookie season with fifth place at Phillip Island.

But th𝕴e injury took a long time to fully heal, physically and mentally.

“It was very hard,” he continued. “I lost all my s♕trength because when you are one-two weeks in [hospital], you stop doing everything, you lose wei🌼ght.

“It was also very hard to get back o🧸n the bike, because my [accident] was a mechanical🥃 problem.

“So then you have to trust the🌊 bike again. It was a very 🦄difficult challenge.”

“After two months there was still some blood”

“After two💦 months there was st༺ill some blood and some air bubbles in the lungs.

“It was hard. A very, 𝔍very nasty crash. Probably one of the worst I would say that I’ve seen.

“We should have made a documentary [to record it all]! But when you are living through it, everything happens so f⛄ast.

“It’s only when yoꦬu look back that you rea✤lise the difficulty.”

Yet just one season later, Mir was crowned the 2020 Mot꧋oGP champion. 

“A year later, that's fantastic,” he grinned.

Also ‘fantas🍨tic’ was Razgatlioglu's🍨 achievement last year.

The Turkish star was romping towards BMW’s first WorldSBK crown when he suffered a collapsed lung in a brutal accident with꧋ a barrier at Magny-Cours, ending a 13-race win streak and forcing him out of two rounds.

However, Razgatlioglu returned to claim the tit🎃le.

“For sure ෴what Toprak did was fantastic, to get the title wi🐻th all that extra difficultly," said Mir.

"So I really congratulate hღim. He was the strongest last season.

“I'm very happy fo🐓r him. We’ve known each other since the Rookies Cup in 2014 and he's a nice guy.”

Reigning MotoGP champion Jorge Martin won the 2014 Rookies Cup fr🍬om Mir, with Razgatlioglu taking a race win on his way to sixth.

Martin joined the Moto3 world cha🌳mpionship in 2015, when Mir won races in the CEV Junior series and made his GP debut as a wild-card.

Meanwhile, Razgatlioglu began a different path, eventually leading to double World Superbike title glory, by winning the European Superstock 600 Ch🌟ampionship.

Razgatlioglu continues 🧸to be intermittently linked with MotoGP and, perhaps if BMW commits to the premier class, could again find himself on thꦕe grid alongside Martin and Mir once again.