MotoGP, Germany J3, Ai Ogura (Aprilia/Ab.) feels bad: "I'm really sorry for Mir"

Ai Ogura made a mistake during the German GP and collided with Joan Mir, causing both of them to crash.

After a flamboyant start to the season, Ai Ogura has been struggling more since returning from injury. The Japanese rookie missed the British and Aragon Grands Prix and hasn't returned to 100% fitness after fracturing his right tibia during FP1 at Silverstone. Since then, he's slowly been getting back on track.

This weekend in Germany, he again moved towards the back of the standings, qualifying 19th and finishing 17th in yesterday's sprint race. Today, however, he showed more pace and was able to take advantage of the numerous crashes that occurred in front of him, which allowed him to move back to the edge of the top 10.

Unfortunately, while trying to overtake Joan Mir for tenth place on the 22nd lap of the race, he missed his braking and hit the Spaniard head-on. He hadn't even finished sliding before he was already making an apologetic gesture towards him, but the damage was done. Shamefully, the Japanese man could do nothing but reiterate his apologies.

“The crash was entirely my fault. I saw the riders in front go a bit wide and there aren't many opportunities to overtake on this circuit, so I tried. I lost the front and, unfortunately, I hit another rider. I'm really sorry for Joan! It wasn't a nice feeling [to crash him].”, he said during his debriefing.

"In the race, I felt pretty good, and compared to Friday, it was much better because I was able to stay with a lot of other drivers. There are positives to take away, but if you don't see the checkered flag, it's not much use. Now it's off to Brno."

Ai Ogura will be able to make up for it next weekend, during the Czech Republic Grand Prix, where practice will begin on Friday morning.

German Grand Prix results :

Classification credit: MotoGP.com

Main photo credit: Ronny Hartmann / AFP via Getty Images