MotoGP: Rins in hospital as Suzuki leave Valencia battered and blue

The Suzuki MotoGP team have had an expensive pre-season test at Valencia, leaving the Spanish track with both riders battered and bruised and with an expensive repair bill to three GSX-RR machines, after crashes for Andrea Iannone, Alex Rins and test rider Takuma Tsuda.

MotoGP rookie Rins was both the worst off and the first faller of the final day of testing, falling at turn twelve and hitting an unprotected tyre wall, leaving himself with two compressed vertebrae. Ambulanced to a local hospital and set to be transferred tomorrow to Barcelona, he looks set to miss his second outing next week at Jerez for the team.

However, his teammate Andrea Iannone, only recovering form a back injury of his own, was lucky to avoid further damage himself, crashing at the same place only moments later and bringing out the red flags as riders complained about the lack of safety equipment at the same turn where Sam Lowes also suffered neck injuries yesterday.

“I hurt my elbow in the crash, and I rode with a lot of pain all day. But it was very important that we rode today, so I tried my best. I didn’t push at 100%, because it was dangerous for me to crash another time, but it’s ok.

“It was a very strange crash to explain, because when I arrived, I just touched the brakes and lost the front immediately, like a wet crash. But I think this morning the temperature was a little low, and I started with hard tyres, and I think that didn’t help.”

However, Iannone was able to rally back well from the crash, going on to finish the day in an impressive fourth place overall.