Donington return at good pace for John Hopkins
The Stiggy Honda rider, who had only joined the team at Valencia in Spain one race weekend earlier, looked to have been out for some significant time, and after practicing but not racing at Misano, it looked like his return to action was too much, too soon.
It may indeed have been, but in his first real race back from injury Hopkins secured a top eight place at Donington, a strong result given that most of his main rivals had been grabbing more and more experience on their 2009 machines with every weekend that Hopkins was out of action. ‘Hopper' only started one race, but it was a positive one to re-join his road to real recovery on.
Said Hopkins of his weekend, "First of all I want to apologize to the team and sponsors for not being able to ride the second race today. I got off the line really good in the first race but just poked around on the first lap and was not as aggressive as I normally am. But as the adrenaline kicked in I picked my way up to gain as many positions as possible. Halfway through the race the pain kicked in and I struggled to move on the bike. From the whole of turn one to the end of the straight I just had to sit still on the bike and not put any pressure on my left leg. It is a good result for the condition I was in today. I have five days of testing coming up now and I am just really happy to be having fun on a motorcycle again. Even though I was in a lot of pain today, it was the best race I have had in the last two years. I have had a lot of fun on the bike again, and that's when you start getting faster."
