Alex Rins will miss the next two MotoGP races as he continues to recover from recent surgery on his leg, with Iker Lecuona to deputise for the Spaniard.
Rins has struggled to be race-fit since breaking his left leg in a nasty crash in June’s Italian Grand Prix sprint race at Mugello. The LCR Honda racer spent four months on the sidelines waiting for his injury to heal before returning for the Japanese Grand Prix, though he was forced to push his race return a further two weeks to the Indonesian GP.
Having finished an impressive ninth on Sunday at Mandalika, Rins then ran into more problems after sustaining a hernia on his healing leg ahead of the Australian GP – the six-time premier class race winner subsequently undergoing surgery to correct the problem.
This forced him to miss the Thai GP, and due to an extended recovery period, he has now been forced to skip this weekend’s Malaysian GP as well as the Qatar GP a week later. He hopes to make a welcome return to competition for the season finale at Valencia, his last race with Honda before moving to Yamaha’s factory operation for next year.
Explaining the situation in a brief post across its social media channels, the LCR squad revealed that Honda World Superbike racer Lecuona would step in for Rins for the next two grand prix outings. This will bring Lecuona’s total race number in 2023 to seven, the Andorran having deputised for Marc Marquez and Joan Mir in the factory Honda team for the Spanish and Dutch encounters respectively.
He then made a further three outings with LCR in place of Rins for the British, Austrian and Catalan GPs. He is yet to score points in his 2023 appearances so far, his best result of 16th coming in Jerez and Barcelona.
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