P122
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
T
here's something missing
from the closing stages
of the 2018 season—and
from at least two and maybe
more of the last five races. It was
Jorge Lorenzo's Ducati, which
might even have won both the
Thai and the Japanese GPs if cir-
cumstances hadn't intervened.
Actually there was something
else missing: an explanation
from Ducati about exactly what
happened to slew the Spaniard
sideways, and then shoot him
skywards at some speed. It was
a spectacular Friday afternoon
high jump at Buriram that broke
his left wrist and didn't do his
freshly broken right foot much
good either.
Then it was a somehow mis-
directed medical investigation
that then failed to identify the
extent of the fracture to his left
wrist. Instead of jetting home to
Spain for the sort of surgery that
enabled Jorge Martin to return
one week after a similar injury at
Brno, and to battle for the win in
Austria, Lorenzo elected to let
matters take their own course. A
mistake, as it turned out. This is
the same man who had a broken
collarbone pinned overnight and
returned the next day to race at
Assen, but it was to his cost that
HAS SOMEONE GOT IT IN
FOR LORENZO?
