English-American racer John Hopkin’s performance in pre-season testing on Suzuki’s new 800cc MotoGP machine has been nothing short of spectacular – after disappointing results during his time on the company’s previous 990cc machine (which may have had more to do with the bike than the rider), Hopkins came out guns blazing on the 800, leading many to name him as a dark-horse championship contender in ’07.
Unfortunately, as Dirck’s article on
February 18, 2007 related, Hopkin’s crash last Thursday on the final day of testing at Qatar put his 2007 season in doubt. Now it is reported his crash may have caused injuries more serious than the Rizla MotoGP Team believed just two days ago.. The original diagnosis caught two broken toes (which shouldn’t cause too much of a problem), but declared the injuries to his right wrist to be only tissue damage, with no broken bones.
However, the right wrist doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and actually feels worse than it did last week. In a press release, Hopkins implied that he might have a fractured scaphoid, which sometimes won’t show up on X-Rays for over a week. Not only that, but he also aggravated an old break in his left wrist which he hadn’t known about until now.
Hopkins has declared his determination to ride in the Qatar season opener, but even if he is 100% healed by that time, missing some or all of the remaining pre-season testing could put him behind his competitors as far as development of the new bike. Even worse would be attempting to ride the first round (or the first few rounds) with a painful injury – riding with an injured wrist can aggravate the problem and thus increase healing time, and being distracted by the pain could slow him down and even make him more likely to crash again and receive further injuries.
Now that Hopkins finally appears to have a bike that can compete with the fastest machines on the grid, I think all of us MotoGP fans are hoping he can ride injury-free this season and get a chance to show his full potential.
