Sylvain broken but undeterred

Sylvain Guintoli (Effenbert - Liberty Racing) had a torrid time at Donington, and found out the reason why when he undertook more medical tests on the Monday after the races. His crunching crash in Australia had resulted in fractures to his hand and ankle, despite previous medical checks that indicated otherwise.

As Sylvain describes, "I spent all of Monday trying to find out why I had so much pain during the weekend in Donington. After some more X-rays and an MRI scan in Manchester, these are the conclusions of my doctors in UK. There are two fractures on my hand, one of which is quite bad. Fortunately, the bones have not moved and I should get better and better without surgery. There is also a fracture on my ankle that is not healed and is at risk of non-union. The bones have not moved. This means I will have to wear a support for 10 days and get some rest. More exams will be made after the Assen race to make a decision about surgery or not."

Sylvain was third placed qualifier in Australia and he expected to be a front-runner too, were it not for his big crash. He had to watch his team-mate Jakub Smrz make a good play for the win in race one at Donington last weekend, before Melandri caught and passed "Kuba" very near the end, so we can expect Guintoli to get back to full competitiveness just as soon as is humanly possible to make use of what is clearly a very competitive package.