KTM rider Bradley Smith expects to be fit enough to return to action for the next round of the 2017 season at the TT Circuit Assen, after missing the Catalunya Grand Prix with a finger injury.
Smith took the skin off of his left little finger when his hand got trapped under his handlebar after he highsided out of Turn 2 during the fourth free practice session in Barcelona.
The Briton was taken to hospital to have the wound cleaned, and to avoid suffering any infection Smith opted to sit out the race as well as three days of testing with KTM at the Spanish circuit during the week.
The injury has been closely monitored since Saturday and doctors are satisfied with the state of it at present, with Smith confirming further surgery looks highly unlikely. Though likely not to be fully healed in time for the Dutch TT, Smith expects to be ready to race.
“Since the crash on Saturday we’ve been checking my finger every 24 hours to see there’s no infection and to see the rate of progress of the healing,” he said.
“Right now the doctors are happy day by day with how it’s looking, so basically we’re not going to do any skin graft or further operations yet which is fantastic.
“They expect not a full recovery of the wound in the short term, but it should be ready to race at Assen.
“Now it’s just a case of continuing to do as much as possible to speed up the recovery with creams and cleanliness, so hopefully in just over a week we’ll be ready to be back to around 90% for Assen.”
Team-mate Pol Espargaro and test rider Mika Kallio – who will make two wildcard appearances with KTM in Germany and Austria later in the season – put in three days of intense testing in Barcelona, trying various set-up changes and new parts in a bid to improve the RC16.
Espargaro felt the test served as a ‘review’ of everything KTM has tried during the season so far but could not evaluate in depth during race weekends, and was pleased with the progress made.
“We’ve done a very good job testing here in Barcelona,” said Espargaro.
“I think we’ve made a ‘review’ of the season so far with the parts we have tried as we just don’t have enough time during race weekends.
“We tried things on Monday and then clarified a lot we had in our head. Maybe it wasn’t the best days to ‘a time’ but it was good to confirm things and make a good step with the bike, particularly with the electronics.
“I am super happy because I think we’ve improved the bike a great deal and that is so important for Assen with more information under our belts.”
Comments.
Loading comments…