In a dramatic opening round at Jerez, after a splendid recovery from an off-track excursion, a heavy crash broke his right humerus. Complications meant three operations over the next nine months, and no more races until round three of 2021, still not fully fit.
Then two races from the end, a training spill left him concussed, with a recurrence of the diplopia (double vision) that had first struck back in 2011, scuppering his first attempt at the Moto2 title.
A second successive off-season of recuperation saw him return in time for pre-season tests, seeing clearly but lagging in fitness, and somewhat behind in adapting to an all-new Honda, more than a little different from the previous year’s version.
Undaunted, he was soon back to his cavalier self, willing to push to and beyond the limit in practice to understand the capabilities of bike and tyres better than anybody else. But at only the second round in Indonesia, in race-morning warm-up, a fourth crash of the weekend – an ugly slam-dunk high-sider at 125mph – left him concussed once more. And reawakened the diplopia.