Franco Morbidelli and Raul Fernandez have had to skip this week’s official MotoGP pre-season test at Sepang after suffering injuries in separate crashes.
Pramac Ducati rider Morbidelli’s plan to learn his new steed took a hit after suffering a nasty crash during a private test in Portimao last week. Riding a Ducati superbike at the time, the Italian was knocked unconscious in the high-speed crash at Turn 9 of the Portuguese venue.
His Pramac team delayed his medical examination as long as possible in the hope he could take to the controls of his Ducati GP24 at Sepang, though having undergone several CT scans, he was unfortunately ruled out of any riding for three weeks.
His three-week layoff will also mean he misses the final pre-season test in Qatar, meaning the next time he will be in action will be for the opening round of the 2024 term at Lusail in early March.
Trackhouse Aprilia pilot Fernandez meanwhile saw his Sepang test end before it barely got started, the Spaniard crashing his RS-GP at Turn 11 on Tuesday morning. While escaping serious injury, he did suffer some heavy bruising to his pelvis and hip.
To prevent making the injury any worse ahead of the opening round, Fernandez elected to fly home and focus on returning for the two-day Qatar test in a couple of weeks’ time. Aprilia test rider Lorenzo Savadori will step in for Fernandez for the remainder of the test, allowing the new Trackhouse squad to continue racking up the mileage ahead of its maiden premier class campaign.
“First of all, I would like to say sorry to Aprilia and our Trackhouse Racing MotoGP Team,” said Fernandez.
“This morning in my first laps I had a big crash because of the track conditions. Honestly, I didn’t expect that coming. But because of that crash, I won’t be able to continue this test here in Sepang.
“I feel really, really bad, because we won’t have the chance to continue to understand the new bike better and to learn how it feels. For me, it’s just going to be important now to recover well and to rest.
“To ride the bike like this is not safe for me, so I need to focus on my recovery and try to be at 100% in the Qatar Test to do all the work we planned to do here. Again, I want to say sorry to Aprilia and the team.”
