Luthi ‘100 percent fit, ready to go’

Thomas Luthi could barely conceal his excitement on the eve of his debut aboard the Marc VDS Honda RC213V, and believes he has made a sufficient recovery from injury over the winter months to ensure he is “100 percent fit” to manhandle a MotoGP machine.

The former 125cc world champion had a nightmare end to 2017, as a crash when qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix brought a flailing title challenge to an abrupt halt. An ankle fracture sidelined Luthi through subsequent tests at Valencia and Jerez.

Luthi ‘100 percent fit, ready to go’

Thomas Luthi could barely conceal his excitement on the eve of his debut aboard the Marc VDS Honda RC213V, and believes he has made a sufficient recovery from injury over the winter months to ensure he is “100 percent fit” to manhandle a MotoGP machine.

The former 125cc world champion had a nightmare end to 2017, as a crash when qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix brought a flailing title challenge to an abrupt halt. An ankle fracture sidelined Luthi through subsequent tests at Valencia and Jerez.

Thus this week’s three-day outing at Sepang provides a first opportunity for the 31-year old to sample Honda’s RC213V. Luthi had previously enjoyed outings on KTM’s RC16 in a testing capacity, but Sunday will mark the beginning of life as a MotoGP rider.

Speaking on Saturday, Luthi said recent training with go-karts and motocross bikes had brought him up to speed and proved his ankle had healed sufficiently.

“Finally! I’ve been waiting for this moment all of the winter,” said Luthi. “The last moment with the bike was at Valencia, when I stood next to it with the crutches. It was tough. I could work during the winter. I could get back on my feet and put the crutches away and I could train quite well. Now I can say that I’m ready to go on the bike and, yeah, it’s the moment. It’s time to go, for sure.

“On the bike it will be good. I will be 100 percent fit. For sure, I still can’t run around and stuff like this. Luckily it’s not my job to run around! I went around on the MX bike. It was quite good. I did some sessions with the motocross bike and also other training. It was good. Also skiing was a good test for the foot.

“I went to Spain to visit [ex-racer Julian Simon]. It was really good. He’s a really good guy first of all and he helped me a lot. We did some race karts. It was good to get some speed again.

“For the eyes it was quite a long break with slow motions. Then we went on the MX bike. It was good to get this confidence again. Now the foot is good, it’s 100 percent fit and I can go on the MotoGP bike.”

Luthi was present at the Valencia test last November, as HRC test rider Takumi Takahashi took on testing duties in his absence. While frustrating, those days still provided the opportunity for Luthi to learn some of the ‘theory’ behind riding a 260bhp machine.

“It started even at Valencia: learning in theory. It was good to be there to watch my crew and see what they were doing. Also, to watch Franco, to see what he was doing as a rookie, and to see what he had to learn first. It was interesting to me. Then I talked a lot to people about things in theory.

“Now I have enough of the theory and need to practice it on the bike. But it was still positive. With the training, I tried to adapt it a little bit. I tried to gain some weight with training. It was difficult to get it in a short time. I was many, many hours in the gym. I worked a lot with my physio and my trainer. It was quite positive.

“Now the best thing is to go out on the bike for three days. Malaysia will be quite hard. The conditions are tough for the body. I will try to see what I need to work on before the season starts in Qatar.”

On how he will approach the coming days, Luthi said, “For sure it will be important to do some laps but laps with quality – not just jumping on the bike and doing a race distance immediately. It’s too early.

“I think it’s important to change something on the bike, on the riding style, do a stint of five or six laps, come back in, think about it, understand it, and if you’re clear about it then you do the next step. It’s important to go step-by-step.

“For sure, it’s not an advantage [that I missed the previous tests]. I don’t know how big is the disadvantage. I’m now one step behind Franco. Compared to him, he’s my team-mate. He’s also a rookie. We missed something there. But there’s no thinking that we cannot catch it up before the season starts in Qatar.

“The most important thing now is to stay focused, to stay calm in myself and learn step-by-step, and not to go into it in a rush and over-step some steps. It’s a different world, the MotoGP bike. I have to learn a lot. I know about this and have to stay calm. This is the most important thing now.”

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