Rossi not ruling out return in Spain this weekend
MILAN: Italian great Valentino Rossi has not ruled out a return to MotoGP in Spain this weekend, three weeks af ter breaking his right leg, after getting back on a bike for some test laps on Monday.
Yamaha said the 38-year- old, whose doctors had advised a 3040 day recovery period, had ridden around the Misano circuit near his home in eastern Italy on a YZFR1M road bike to “put his fitness level to the test”.
The evaluation was inconclusive after rain forced him to cut the session short, however.
“He will decide by the end of Wednesday... whether he will attempt to take part in this weekend’s Gran Premio Movistar de Aragon,” Yamaha said.
Motorsport. com quoted his father Graziano as saying Rossi had completed seven or eight laps and hoped to test again on Tuesday.
“I was told he felt a lot of pain in his right leg, but he could not determine in so few laps whether a return at Aragon could be possible,” he said.
Rossi , a nine- t ime world champion, suf fered a double fracture in an accident while riding an off- road enduro bike on Aug 31. He missed the San Marino Grand Prix at Misano and Yamaha said last week that Dutch Superbike rider Michael van der Mark would replace him at Aragon on Sept 24.
The Italian is fourth overall and 42 points adrift of Honda’s Marc Marquez and Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, who are tied at the top of the championship. The race at the Motorland Aragon circuit is the 14th round of the 18 race season. — Reuters