Andrea Iannone tests despite injury agony to solve Ducati brake woe

Andrea Iannone returned to his bike just 10 days after a highside which caused him to have surgery.

Iannone injured the toes on his right foot at Most, but didn’t waste the opportunity of two days testing earlier this week at Misano.

He returned with a protective boot and a modified brake setup to ease the agony.

“I’m for sure not feeling 100%, but it’s important to come back and regain the feeling," said Iannone.

"At the end I think it was a positive day for my physical condition.

“I was able to do many laps, with a lot of pain, but in the end, we made the most of it.

“The injury was only 10 days ago, so I have to be careful not to stress it too much.

“The feeling is not bad, but the speed is not good.

“We have many things to do to improve, at the braking point I don’t have a good feeling with the engine brake, so I lose a lot of speed, especially on the faster parts of the track."

Iannone was 15th on Tuesday and 12th on Wednesday but the test sessions were never about his raw speed.

“All year, I’ve struggled with the brakes, the engine brake, the rear brake, and we’ve tried everything," said Iannone.

"So now with the injury, we are trying to adjust the rear brake to be up by the steering, it’s not bad, but in any case, we struggled [on Tuesday] with that solution.”

The past three World Superbike Championship rounds have not been fruitful for the Go Eleven Ducati rider.

His brake problems have caused a run of three consecutive DNFs.

In his frustration, Iannone considered retiring unless he has a better option for 2026.