MotoGP
Published on January 24, 2019 at 12:00 PM by Michel Dubois

MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo explains his "really stupid" crash

After the mystery surrounding the fall from which Jorge Lorenzo recovered with a broken left scaphoid, the Majorcan pilot provided some details during the presentation of the Repsol Honda team 2019 Madrid.

Jorge Lorenzo: “It was on a motorbike. It was my first day with a motorcycle, doing dirt track on an Italian track. And yes, it happened very quickly, because a mistake was not checking the track properly and in some parts of it there was mud that was difficult to see. Because the surface looked perfect, dry, but there was mud and when I got into that area the front gave way and I had a really stupid fall. But unfortunately my wrist wasn't completely healed from the Thailand crash, so I didn't have 100% mobility, which put a little more pressure on the scaphoid, and it broke. We decided together to undergo an operation, taking into account the particular nature of this bone compared to other bones, its complexity. It is complicated. The scaphoid is one of the most difficult bones to treat. In 2019, we have advanced medical technologies. They place a screw in the bone to recover faster. Without this intervention, it sometimes takes 7 or 8 months to recover.”

This fracture a few days before the start of MotoGP testing for 2019 comes at a bad time, and Jorge Lorenzo is already looking forward to March, for the first Grand Prix of the season: “Obviously the ideal solution would be to be able to drive and test at Sepang. But, given the situation and the few days until Sepang, we have decided 100% that I will not test in Sepang but will test in Qatar, a month or 34 days (after his injury) . I don't think I will be 100% at the Qatar test, probably 80-85%, but 90-95% at the Qatar race. It's like that. Obviously, I didn't expect a fall three days ago. It was a big crash because I think it was a very unlucky crash, an unlucky situation. But now we are in this situation and we have to work as well as possible with the physiotherapist, with the machines and everything, and we have our plan to do that. I think that on Friday I will start to move my wrist a little and, little by little, we will recover well from this injury.”