Just over a year ago, KTM test rider Mika Kallio feared his career might be over aft🥃er a serious knee injury🐭 during a wild-card appearance at Sachsenring.

But in a situation unimaginable as he lay in the h♎ospital, Kallio has now been called-up to finish the season at the🌼 factory MotoGP team, with a chance of staying alongside Pol Espargaro for 2020.

"It's a really special moment for me," Kallio said at Aragon on Thursday. "It's more 🌱than a year since I was last on the bike in a race. There have been some hard moments because of the bad injury on my right knee, which was close to stopping my career.

"It was five months off the bike, just before Christmas was my first time back on the bike.𝔉 The rehab was a little faster than expected, so I was one month early. But it wasn't an easy time. But now I'm back again. So it's just something to enjoy for the moment.

"Basically, ✤there's no pressure from the team-side for results. Everyone knows it's not an easy situation to come back like this. It'll definitely take some time to adapt my feeling to race mode again."

Kallio's big chance follows 🅰;KTM's split from Johann Zarco, who initially looked set to leave at the end of this season, but has now been sent home on full pay for the remaining six races of 2019.

"For sure all the bikes have a DNA and different characteristics," Kallio said. "[Zarco] came from Yamaha, completely different, a💃nd you need to change a lot the feeling and adapt the style fo🍷r the bike.

"I know that he worked a lot to change, even his riding 🅷style, but in the end it just didn’t match. It's hard to say why. Everybody was helping him and I tried as much as♌ possible, just to give some small advice about what I did when I came to KTM. But in the end it doesn't work."

Espargaro, who took the KTM to its bes♑t qualifying performance of second last weekend at Misano, said of his team-mate's early departure:

"It's very difficult ꦐwhen you are not adapting to a bike and then you try to force and try to train and nothing is coming. At the end we are in MotoGP world where everything is so professional and everyone is super fast an💝d super fit.

"You need to adapt to the bike very fast, or you lose your train and for sure I feel reall🉐y sorry for Johann because he is a good guy.

"But the situation has been very tricky for him all year and in the end I think it’s the best solution for both parties. For Johann to rest a little and catch a new opportunity and for the team to continue develoꦬping with Mika.

"I think Mika's g🐻oing to be fast, honestly. Already he's done ꧅wild-cards with us and was very strong until the injury at Sachsenring."

Kallio, who gave the RC16ꦯ it's race debut at Valencia 2016, has spent this season shariﷺng KTM testing duties with Dani Pedrosa.

"First of all it was really good to have him aboard and like everyone knows he has a lot of experience fr𝐆om the past and from Honda he has a lot of information to bring," Kallio said of the 31-time MotoGP race winner.

"For me it was also a nice opportunity to see how he is working, his feeling on the bike and also good to see that basically his feeling, nee💙ds and what he is looking for from the bike was quite similar to me. So it was quite easy to under🅰stand and work with him."