La Massana (Andorra) (AFP)

French MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo spent "the most difficult week of (his) life" when he was affected by Covid-19 in December, he told AFP on Thursday, explaining that he remained bedridden several days.

"I was on my own, I rented an apartment so I wouldn't be with my family and even to cook myself, it tired me, I didn't have the strength. It was amazing to see the power of this. virus, "explains the 21-year-old pilot, one day after revealing on Twitter his contamination with the coronavirus at the end of the 2020 season.

"I spent the most difficult week of my life, I was in a bed, on a sofa, even to eat", confides the one who won his first three Grand Prix in 2020 in the queen category, signing the first French victory since that of Régis Laconi in 1999.

From July to November 2020, "I saw hardly anyone, I was locked up at home with the fear of catching the Covid in high season. I relaxed a little bit after the Portimao race (the last GP of the year on November 22 in Portugal, editor's note) and I caught the Covid ", details the Yamaha rider.

In his mid-season preparation in Andorra, where he lives, between running, bodybuilding and motocross, "the hardest part was to recover my physical condition": "It was quite long, I had a little scared when I started to resume sport ", explains Quartararo, who had" lost a lot of physical condition ".

"I took a little over a month, so I'm really happy now to be at 100% of my abilities and to be able to start the season in great shape", reassures the one who sets out again in quest to become the first champion of the French motorcycle speed world in the premier category from the first two races in Qatar on March 28 and April 4.

According to him, it is not necessarily an advantage against the Covid to be a high level athlete: "we know our body 100%, this is where we really feel all that we have lost when we go back to sport, compared to a + normal + person, who does not put himself at the limit in terms of sport and cannot feel it as we do ".

"I know lots of athletes, in Formula 1 or in other sports, who have had it, some asymptomatic but others who have been very, very badly, like me", explains the Frenchman, taking the example of F1 star Lewis Hamilton, also affected at the end of last year and with whom he was able to discuss this common experience.

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