Fabrizio clear to ride after arm scan
Added on Friday, June 17th, 2011 by Carole Nash Editor
Fabrizio clear to ride after arm scan
Michel Fabrizio will ride through the pain barrier at Aragon this weekend after avoiding a broken arm in last weekend’s high-side in Misano.
The Suzuki Alstare rider crashed out of the opening race in San Marino last week and was originally diagnosed with a suspected fracture to his right scaphoid, but a visit to his specialist this week revealed no broken bones.
The news means that the Italian will race in Spain this weekend, although he admits that he is unsure how strong his arm will be on the Aragon circuit.
“The good news is that nothing is broken, but obviously I have given my right arm a big knock and it is pretty sore,” claimed Fabrizio. “Because of the pain, I was unable to manage my throttle control in the second race last weekend. Physically, I just couldn’t get on the gas like normal and that prevented me from making a better result. Considering the condition of my right arm and my bad grid position, the result was not so bad.
“This weekend is going to be a tough one, for sure. I will not know how my arm is going to be until I get out in the first practice. We all tested here last year and I remember it being quite a challenging circuit and it is going to give my arm a big workout. There is a very long, back straight, where the fastest bikes will maybe hit 200 mph (321 kph) followed by a lot of braking for the slowest corner on the track. We go from flat-out in sixth gear all the way down to first gear and it is the longest time spent on the brakes anywhere in the series. That’s going to put a lot of pressure on my arms, but I am determined not to let it affect my performance. What I want to do is end Saturday’s Superpole with a good grid position. It’s something that I have not managed so far, but it would be very interesting to see what kind of results I could get, if I started races on the first or second row, instead of somewhere down the grid.”
