Maverick Vinales will miss this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone after a previously undiagnosed shoulder tear was found during the summer break, with KTM calling up test rider Pol Espargaro in his place as MotoGP restarts with a thinned-out grid.
Vinales has been managing a shoulder problem since the 2025 German Grand Prix, and the layoff was meant to fix it. Instead, further scans found new damage.
"During the summer break, we kept looking for the reason why I wasn't getting the strength back in external rotation in my left arm, while the internal rotation had a significant improvement over the last few months," Vinales said.
"Further medical tests showed that, although my supraspinatus has fully healed, I also have a small tear in the infraspinatus that we didn't realise until last week. We're now working on the best recovery plan.
"It's not the best news, as the second part of the season starts now. I don't know how long it's going to take, but I will put everything as always into this recovery."
The absence lands in the middle of an increasingly public standoff. Reports last week suggested Tech3 and KTM were weighing an immediate split from the 10-time grand prix winner, whose exit from the brand at season's end is now regarded as certain. Vinales rejected that outright on Instagram.
"I start to read articles without sense," he wrote. "Stop writing stupid articles about me, I will not race in SBK, and I will finish the year as my contract says."
Tech3 team manager Nico Goyon framed the Silverstone withdrawal purely as a medical one.
"It's obviously not the news we wanted to be announcing after the summer break, and the whole team feel very sad for Maverick," Goyon said. "We wish Maverick a speedy recovery and hope to see him back on the bike at the next race in Aragon."
"I have mixed feelings about this," Espargaro said. "On one hand, I feel sad; it's never nice to jump on the bike in this situation, when a rider is injured and can't race, especially when it's Maverick. That's a real shame. On the other hand, racing is in my blood.
"I'll need a bit of time to adapt back to the category, since I've mostly been testing the RC16 for the new project and haven't been on the 1000cc bike in a while, but after a couple of sessions, I'll be ready."
He is not the only substitute in the Silverstone garages. Cal Crutchlow continues at LCR Honda in place of Johann Zarco, whose Catalunya crash left him with knee ligament damage that was initially thought to require surgery.
An LCR statement confirmed the Frenchman has since avoided the operating theatre. "The medial collateral ligament is healing well, while the posterior cruciate ligament, initially believed to be torn, is also showing encouraging signs of recovery. The anterior cruciate ligament remains torn," the team said, adding that doctors were "impressed by Johann Zarco's progress" and that the target is a return to the track in September. Zarco will miss both Silverstone and Aragon.
Fermin Aldeguer is also still sidelined with the T7 vertebra fracture he sustained in practice at Assen in June, with Iker Lecuona again standing in.
All of it plays out against the tightest title fight in years. Only 24 points cover the top five, with Jorge Martin leading on 208 from Ai Ogura on 194 and Marc Marquez on 190, ahead of Marco Bezzecchi - himself returning from Sachsenring surgery and admitting he is "not 100%" - and Fabio Di Giannantonio.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/espargaro-replaces-vinales-as-motogp-injury-list-grows). Visit for full coverage.*