With his name still on the lists, there remained a slim chance that Cal Crutchlow would try to take part in the last round of the season in Valencia to defend his chances in the independent riders' standings, but this evening the LCR Honda team rider published a message unfortunately summarizing his state of health: despite his crazy hopes, the Briton will not participate in the Valencian Community Grand Prix, nor even in the first MotoGP tests of the 2019 season, in Valencia and Jerez!
Cal Crutchlow: “Now I am back home and recovering well. I'm giving an update on my injury today...
First of all, I want to thank you for all the wishes I have received since Friday at the Philip Island GP. All the circuit medical staff, my LCR Honda CASTROL Team, HRC and everyone who came to visit me while I was in hospital in Melbourne, especially my wife Lucy who traveled to be with me for the 12 days I had to stay. Jake Harrison and Andy Roche for arranging everything and of course our Team Manager Lucio (Cecchinello) who stayed with me every day until he left for Malaysia.
I had excellent surgeons with Matthias Russ and Dr. Evans who initially put an external fixator on my leg until the swelling went down and they could operate, which was 6 days later. The accident caused a fracture of the tibia, fibula and talus. The surgical procedure was completed in three and a half hours and, in addition to the reconstruction with artificial bone, two metal plates and eight screws were inserted.
The injury I suffered can take up to 12 months to recover and although as a determined motorcycle rider I thought I would be back in time for the Valencia GP, this is unfortunately not the case . I won't be able to put any weight on my ankle for six weeks, but I'm still recovering and undergoing physical therapy. This week I'm going to start trying cycling again and I'm looking forward to preparing for Sepang in February 2019.
I have had a fantastic season with the LCR Honda CASTROL Team and HRC and I look forward to more great memories in 2019-2020. Good luck to my team this weekend in Valencia and to all the riders on the MotoGP grid.
I can’t wait to see the best motorsport championship there is as a fan this weekend…”
All our best wishes for recovery go to this endearing pilot!
As a result, it will be replaced again by Stefan Bradl.
Stefan bradl: “I am happy to be back with LCR in Valencia. It's another opportunity for me to show that we can put in a good performance, like we did in Sepang. It will definitely be difficult because the forecast for Valencia looks quite changeable, but hopefully we can continue from where we finished in Malaysia. We will work closely with HRC and I look forward to being part of the team again. We'll see what we can do, I'm excited about the challenge ahead of us. Once again I want to thank HRC and Lucio (Cecchinello) for this opportunity and I wish Cal a very quick recovery… I hope to see him back on his bike soon.”
