Castrol Honda World Superbike rider Jonathan Rea looks set to miss more than just this weekend's two seventh round World Superbike championship races at Aragon in Spain following surgery in the UK yesterday.
Rea crashed during warm-up for round six of the series last Sunday at Misano in Italy, with the most serious initial diagnosis - following x-rays at the Ospetale Bufalini in Cesena - being a fractured radius near his right wrist.
The 24-year-old from Northern Ireland flew back to Manchester on Monday to visit consultant orthopedic hand surgeon, Mike Hayton, who operated on Rea yesterday afternoon. In addition to the radius fracture, however, the surgery also revealed damage to the scapholunate ligament in his right wrist.
A screw was inserted in the radius bone and the ligament damage has been pinned. It means that Rea is unlikely to be fit to compete at the Brno round in the Czech Republic on 8-10 July.
"I was pretty upset when I got the news after the surgery yesterday because it means a longer rehab than we'd thought," Rea said. "It's difficult, of course, and I'm devastated, but I've got a great team around me so I know I'll get all the support I need to come back strong. As I said before, I want to be 100% when I get back on the bike so, at the moment, I'm not going to put a definitive timescale on that. I'll just concentrate on getting back to fitness as fast and as completely as I can.
Team Manager Ronald ten Kate was also disappointed with the news,
"Well, without doubt, this was not the news we wanted to hear," ten Kate lamented. "We had all hoped that Jonathan's injury was quite straightforward and easy to heal. Now it seems it is a bit more complicated and will take longer to fix. The important thing is that he takes the time needed to fix it properly because there are still quite some circuits left on the calendar where we know that Jonathan and the bike work very well together. Of course, we have to begin thinking about another rider on the bike while Jonathan is away, but we also need to concentrate on Aragon this weekend and getting the best possible setting for Ruben to compete to his full potential.
