The Aprilia MotoGP team escaped a major accident during Saturday's San Marino Grand Prix as an incredible chain of events resulted in an errant Forward Racing Moto2 bike crashing into Aleix Espargaro's garage.
Forward's replacement rider Unai Orradre (who is standing in for the injured Alex Escrig) was riding down the Misano pitlane during second Moto2 practice when a track worker stepped off the elevated pitwall without checking to see if his path was clear.
As first reported by Motosprint's Mirko Colombi, who witnessed the collision and captured the lead photo of the aftermath, the two collided and Orradre fell from his machine as he took avoiding action, though he escaped without injury.
The marshal involved was taken to hospital for further examination but is believed to have escaped major injuries.
But the riderless bike then proceeded down the pitlane, veering into the Aprilia garage and striking one of Espargaro's mechanics - who was left with with minor hand injuries - and one of the RS-GP machines.
With his crew chief Antonio Jiminez and data engineer only just having stepped out of the garage, Espargaro told The Race that things could have been much worse had the incident happened only moments earlier.
"We were very lucky," Espargaro admitted. "I was not there but they told me the bike came inside the garage - and luckily, one minute before, because the bike hit my engineer's table, Antonio and my data guy went out to take a coffee.
"But the bike completely destroyed the garage. So, we're very lucky. Just some scare of one mechanic.
"Some very strange things can happen in this world."
The incident immediately drew unpleasant comparisons to the tragic death of Japanese racer Nobuyuki Wakai at the 1993 Spanish GP at Jerez.
There, the 250cc class rider was exiting the pitlane when he was forced to take avoiding action to miss striking a fan who had gained unauthorised access to pitlane, and died after hitting his head on the corner of the pitwall.
