Loris Capirossi will miss the two-day post Catalan Grand Prix test, and faces a race against time to regain fitness for the forthcoming British Grand Prix, after injuring his hand following a collision with rookie
Alex de Angelis on lap 11 of Sunday's race.
The Rizla Suzuki rider had made a good start from 12th and was up into eighth place by lap two. The experienced Italian was part of a group battling for what eventually became sixth position when he and de Angelis collided on the exit of turn three, putting them both out of the race.
"I was making up positions after a bad start and had closed in on Capirossi. Loris went too deep into the first corner and ran a little wide, so I tried to get up the inside of him," explained Alex. "Unfortunately he closed the door on the exit of the corner and we hit each other and crashed."
de Angelis was unharmed, but Loris was immediately taken to the trackside clinic where he was found to have a dislocated fracture of the fifth right metacarpus and a deep wound with loss of skin to his fifth right finger. Capirossi felt de Angelis had caused the accident.
"It has been a really bad end to the weekend, because I felt that everything was working well on the bike and I felt good," began Capirossi. "I think I could have fought with Chris [Vermeulen] and
James Toseland, but de Angelis tried a bit too hard and put me out of the race. But this is racing and sometimes things like this happen. Now I have to be careful because I have an injury and it will not be so easy for me to recover for the two races in one week [
Donington Park and Assen]. We will see, but I will certainly try to recover as quickly as I can."
"
MotoGP is not an easy sport but we weren't done any favours today," added team manager Paul Denning. "When de Angelis rammed Loris off the track in turn three the result was a fracture of his right hand. The dislocated fracture has been put back into position very skilfully by Dr. Costa, and the bone has been set in a cast.
