Following the pain in the right forearm experienced by Fabio Quartararo during the Spanish Grand Prix, Jean-Michel Bayle published a text addressing both the issue of compartment syndrome and the French pilot.
Not being doctors and the information on what medically happened in the El Diablo suit being almost non-existent, we can only take note and postpone the text of "JMB", while waiting, perhaps, for a more official explanation from the person concerned or from the medical world…
Compartment syndrome.
This weekend I heard everything and anything about arm pain and compartment syndrome…
So I will tell you my point of view.
two years ago when I went to give a hand to Johann Zarco I was able to see what I had been thinking for a while, MotoGP bikes are progressing and going faster and faster (more power, more tire grip, anti-slip, more brakes) and therefore necessarily the physical constraints on the drivers increase, it's just logical.
It's not surprising to see more and more physical problems happening to the pilots, arm pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, and I have the impression that they've discovered all this recently, coming often, moreover. , Moto2 categories which are much less physical motorcycles than MotoGP.
I come from Moto-Cross and Super-Cross and I can tell you that arm pain I know, the Cross rider is faced with this problem from a very young age: As soon as he tries to go fast on a long distance, he is prone to arm pain.
Of course, some drivers have more problems than others and there can be many reasons for this, genetics, past training, current training, position, stress, race pressure, etc. The issue, in short, many things come into play in arm pain.
In Moto-Cross and Super-Cross you learn to live with it and above all to manage your effort, because if you insist too much, compartment syndrome arrives and then it's uncontrollable.
So let's return to the subject of the weekend where Fabio was in the lead of the MotoGP race in Jerez and had to slow down to be able to finish this Grand Prix with a complete tetanization of his forearm. I haven't spoken with him or those close to him but from my experience and what he explained I am certain I have already felt this sensation in my career as a Super-Cross driver.
The simplest sentence I have heard is “Arm pain therefore compartment syndrome therefore operation and everything will be OK…”
Now let's take a step back to try to analyze this situation.
1- the Jerez circuit is one of the most physically difficult circuits with a Motogp, very short straight lines, so short that they are no longer even straight lines because the riders fight with their motorcycles to get back on the correct trajectory. braking, lots of fast turns and three very slow turns, so big braking and big accelerations.
2- Fabio had an impressive pace in the race to try to make a gap with his pursuers, he was trying, I think, to take shelter in case his rear tires wore out in the last 5 laps. But there is a big difference between doing one or two very fast laps and doing 7 or 8.
3- Arm pain generally occurs when the stress is too strong and too long, the muscle lacks oxygen and it swells and as a result the blood circulates less well and therefore even less oxygen, it is a vicious circle in which it is better not to return.
Now why does this happen to some drivers and not others?
Last year during confinement I was asked the question about what I thought of Fabio, which earned me a phone call from his close guard to tell me that I was wrong to say that... I had said at that time that Fabio had two big weaknesses to work on, the physical and the mental, because, during the 2019 season, I had noticed that on very physical circuits, he had difficulty keeping his bike under control , especially after a few laps and mentally he tended to give up the effort when there were technical problems (tire wear or bad settings).
Don't think I'm criticizing Fabio, I always try to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the drivers, I've always been a perfectionist and I've always tried to understand the whys and wherefores of everything.
So I was very happy to see his progress on the mental side during the first 3 races of the season, there, I said to myself, impressing Fabio, he gained a lot of confidence.
I was a little doubtful about the physique, as I had heard some complaints about his arms.
The conclusion ?
Compartment syndrome surgery is never the ideal solution because usually the problem returns because the cause that caused the problem is still there.
Now, the operation can allow you to resume intense activity quickly but you absolutely have to work on what is causing the arm pain.
If you improve your physical condition and your cardiovascular capacities, the body is able to bring more oxygen to the muscles and therefore the arms.
When you have better physical condition and better cardiovascular capacities, your heart beats lower for the same effort. This gives us a margin in the event of stress during the race or a temporary greater demand and therefore always brings more oxygen to the muscles.
Through training, we can also build a more durable and less explosive muscle, the muscle fibers work and specialize according to the type of effort required during training, slow and fast contraction fibers.
It is also possible to work on your strategy by knowing your weak points; it would perhaps have been wiser, sensing the problem coming, to lower the pace a little and let yourself be overtaken by Miller and force him to impose the pace of the game. race.
This is my analysis. I absolutely do not criticize Fabio, I try to understand with sincerity and objectivity what happened and I wish him to find the solutions to his problems to be able to fight for the world title.
Photo credit : Roman Borák
