ROBERTS JR CRASHES OUT AT PHILLIP ISLAND
14 October 2005 - Moto GP

Team SUZUKI MotoGP racer Kenny Roberts Jr will take no further part in this weekend’s Polini Australian Grand Prix after injuring himself in this morning’s practice session.

Roberts Jr had already topped the time-sheets on a drying Phillip Island circuit and had just changed bikes to evaluate the new cowlings that Suzuki has produced for the GSV-R prototype race bike. He crashed heavily at the end of the front straight just as he was going into turn one. The 2000 World Champion was thrown violently from his bike and landed heavily in the gravel. He was immediately taken to the medical centre and following lengthy investigations and x-rays it was discovered he had a fracture in the wrist area of his left hand. Roberts Jr will return to California for further examinations and will not be fit to race at next weekend’s inaugural Turkish Grand Prix – so Team SUZUKI MotoGP will run a one-man team.

John Hopkins has had a very productive day and used both practice sessions to find the correct Bridgestone tyre for race day. He believes he has found the compound that is best suited to the cooler conditions at Phillip Island and will continue to get the optimum set-up from his GSV-R during tomorrow. He also tested the latest fairing and will do a comparison test on Saturday between the new version and the existing design.

Today’s sessions were held in dry sunny conditions with track surface temperatures only reaching 28 degrees. The fastest time was set by World champion Valentino Rossi.

Team SUZUKI MotoGP will have a further practice session on Saturday morning and then Hopkins will be lone Suzuki rider going for the best qualifying position he can get during the afternoon timed session.

Kenny Roberts Jr:

“The bike felt better today than it did in testing in January which is a positive step forward in development for Suzuki. As far as the session and the crash go there is not a lot that makes sense at the moment. I thought initially there would have been a mechanical failure or something to that effect, because I’ve never high-sided going 200k’s at the end of the straight like that before. The guys are looking over the bike now but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. It’s disappointing to have a crash that takes you out for the whole weekend when you didn’t do anything to cause you to fall down in such a way – it just happened! Loris Capirossi had a similar sort of crash and high-sided at speed in the same place as I did. I’ve heard that he thought the same as I did - that it was something mechanical, so I don’t know whether it was just a chain of events or circumstances that led up to it. We were in the top three during the session and I was still on used tyres so I know what the situation would have been for the weekend, and I was looking forward to a strong finish.

“I’d like to thank Dr Wei and everybody at the medical centre. I was having a bit of a hard time when I first got there and was struggling to stay in the situation because I had hit my head pretty hard when I got thrown around. Dean, Gerry Biasi, the doctors and everybody from the team were great and tried to make everything as comfortable as possible. We will now try everything we can to get better from here and try to get back as soon as possible.”

John Hopkins:

“It was a consistent day for us, but a bad day for Suzuki. Unfortunately Kenny hurt himself - best wishes to him and it sucks that we won’t have him this weekend. Two bikes are always better than one out on the track and we could have made some more progress with the machine – especially the new cowling. That just leaves us to do everything we can. From this morning we have been working to find race tyres, fortunately we ran a tyre at the end of the session which I would say is the best tyre that we have for the weekend. We still need to work on the set-up to have a good package so that we are able to go out and do some decent lap times tomorrow and some long runs.”

Dean Miller – Team Physio:

“Kenny had a big get off today and despite bumps and bruises all over his body, no internal issues seem to have come up and he seems to be fine, apart from a fracture in the articulation area of the thumb and his left arm. It doesn’t appear to be too serious but it could be difficult for him to ride and put pressure on it in the race. He has decided not to risk it and will travel back to California and see Dr Ting - his surgeon - and take it from there. As to when he will return that is still up in the air, it will be based on how well we heals. He definitely won’t be in Turkey next week but we can’t rule out the possibility of him riding at Valencia next month.”

Paul Denning – Team Manager:

“We are all very disappointed for Kenny but there is a sense of relief that his injuries are no greater than a fracture. A high-side is never pleasant but a fourth gear high-side into turn one at Phillip Island is about as bad as it gets. The injury is particularly frustrating given that Kenny has, over the last three of four races, got into a strong rhythm and was feeling a lot more positive and enthusiastic about the direction the whole package was taking. He won’t be available for Turkey and regarding Valencia that is a wait and see situation, which will be dependent on further investigations in the States.

“John has been running the new cowling that Suzuki has developed specifically for here to cope with the strong cross winds. It has some advantages at this stage but we need to evaluate it against the original GSV-R cowling tomorrow to make sure it is the way forward. John is searching for a bit more performance in all directions but Stuart Shenton – his Crew Chief - and the guys seem to have a clear idea for tomorrow in order to maximise our potential for race-day.”

Polini Australian Grand Prix Combined Free Practice Times

1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1’30.349: 2. Carlos Checa (Ducati) +0.270: 3. Nicky Hayden (Honda) +0.667: 4. Sete Gibernau (Honda) +0.967: 5. Alex Barros (Honda) +1.110: 6. Marco Melandri (Honda) +1.181: 7. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +1.551: 8. Toni Elias (Yamaha) +1.602: 9. Max Biaggi (Honda) +1.639: 10. JOHN HOPKINS (TEAM SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.716: 17. KENNY ROBERTS JR (TEAM SUZUKI MOTOGP) +3.171

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