Jezza reveals setback

Jeremy McWilliams is confident he will be able to return to MotoGP action at next month’s Qatar IRTA test.

The hope is still there after a blunder by Spanish surgeons could have shattered his dreams of a return to the premier class arena in 2007.

The 42-year-old has revealed that he is recovering from a second operation on his broken left femur that he suffered in testing the Ilmor 800cc machine in Jerez at the end of November.

Complications after the first operation shortly after the crash, which also broke his right collarbone and saw his wedding ring finger amputated, meant McWilliams underwent more surgery in Belfast just three days before Christmas.

His physio alerted him to a potential problem and after X-rays it was revealed that surgeons who originally pinned the femur in Spain didn’t attach two screws that fix the pin to the knee.

McWilliams was told while the bone would have eventually healed, it could have put his riding career in jeopardy.

All this came just weeks after the British rider was celebrating a dramatic return to MotoGP with the new Ilmor squad.

Now undergoing daily physiotherapy and daily visits to the gym to build strength in his left leg, McWilliams is certain he will be able to line-up at the Qatar test, which gets underway on February 13, 2007.

He will see surgeons in Belfast on February 6, where it expected he is to given clearance to join team-mate Andrew Pitt in Doha after an intensive rehabilitation.

McWilliams said: “I’m really positive and am already stationary cycling and at the moment there should be no problems with me making the Qatar test. 

“That was always my target and nothing has changed despite the re-op. The femur takes eight to ten weeks to heal properly, and six weeks before that healing process really starts.

“I had the problems after three weeks so the bone wasn’t really at the stage where it was healing. I didn’t need to have it re-broken.  

“Basically the pin is fixed to the hip by one screw and the knee by two screws. 

“But there were no screws at all fixing the pin to the knee so it started moving.

“That was causing my foot to rotate so I wouldn’t have been able to change gear. I first noticed it when I was lying on my back and my foot was flat on the bed. 

“And I’d wake up with a strange sensation in the leg. It would have healed but I’d have had one leg shorter than the other and my left foot would have been sticking out.”