Alvaro Bautista breaks collarbone

Factory Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautista looks a certainty to miss next weekend’s French GP at Le Mans after breaking his collarbone in a motocross training accident.

Suzuki is making no official comment on the Spaniard’s plight while bosses await further information on the severity of the injury, but sources close to MCN claim the former world 125GP champion has broken his collarbone and is out of the Le Mans race on May 23.

With no official confirmation yet released by Suzuki, it is not clear who will partner experienced Italian Loris Capirossi in France.

It is unlikely to be Leon Haslam with the British rider locked in a fierce battle for the 2010 World Superbike championship on board a Suzuki GSX-R1000.

A more likely and obvious option could be Haslam’s team-mate Sylvain Guintoli.
The British-based French rider obviously has in-depth knowledge of his home track and has ridden an 800cc MotoGP bike at Le Mans previously.

But sources claim that veteran Japanese test rider and former world 500cc number three Nobuatsu Aoki would take Bautista’s factory GSV-R.

Bautista, who last week became the first MotoGP rider to lap the new Silverstone circuit, is the latest in a long line of premier class stars to suffer injury while motocross training.

Fellow Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo’s pre-season preparations were seriously disrupted when he broke a bone in his right hand while training with Carlos Checa in February.

And last month, reigning world champion Valentino Rossi damaged ligaments in his right shoulder after a motocross accident in Italy that left him short of full fitness at the recent Spanish MotoGP race in Jerez.