VOL. 51 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 19, 2014 P65
Briefly...
skinning and spraining the little fin-
ger of his left hand, and not only for
the rider. Bautista was close behind
him on the entry to the 124 mph Turn
11 and also crashed as he braked.
His looping bike missed Rossi "by
five meters [around 16 feet]". The
Honda hit the barriers and stopped,
scattering marshals leaning against
the fence … Rossi's Yamaha had
flown right over them and landed on
the service road, only three feet or
so in front of a car taking VIP guests
around. Visibly enraged, with a petu-
lant kick at the barrier as he walked
past clutching his left hand, Rossi
feared he had fractured his finger.
Instead "there is a hole and you can
see inside, and no skin … but the X-
ray showed no fracture. That is lucky,
because with the vibration a fracture
in your finger can be very painful,"
he said. On race morning in Moto2
warm-up Thomas Luthi's bike also al-
most cleared the barrier, coming to
rest on top of the tire wall, prompting
further concerns about trackside
safety.
The effects of ageing respect no man
– not even Valentino Rossi, who
admitted at Brno that at 35 his body
doesn't work as it used to, in particu-
lar his left knee. "Since I broke my
right leg [at Mugello in 2010], I have
had problems with my left… I don't
know why," he said. "At Indy, at the
end of the race, I had some pain."
Tenterhooks have been put back in
the box for Bradley Smith, after an
announcement in the week before
Brno that he has signed to stay one
more year at Tech 3. The Briton's
pace has improved this year – third
in free practice in Brno and top Ya-
After getting
past the
Ducatis, Jorge
Lorenzo (99)
led the race
until Pedrosa
(26) took over
on lap six.
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