Stefan Bradl breaks ankle in unlucky Sepang crash

Stefan Bradl will miss tomorrow’s Malaysian MotoGP race at Sepang after he suffered a broken right ankle in an unlucky accident during this afternoon’s fourth practice session.

The LCR Honda rider suffered a relatively small front-end crash at the tight first corner in FP4 but as he slid off track, his right foot jammed on a strip of Astroturf, snapping his ankle that will require surgery in Kuala Lumpur this evening.

Bradl’s potential absence from next weekend’s Australian MotoGP race immediately saw a flurry of rumours engulf the Sepang paddock that retired Aussie Casey Stoner would be considered as a replacement for the German at Phillip Island.

Honda moved quickly to dampen the gossip by saying Stoner was not an option, despite a series of testing appearances for HRC in Japan recently.

Bradl said: “I was quite confident in FP4 and we were on a new tyre to get ready for the QP2. So I started to push but for some reason I felt a bit strange with the rear tyre because I could not get the proper grip quickly.

“I tried to push on braking a bit too much for the first corner and I lost the front. Honestly it was not a heavy crash but I was unlucky. The handle bar of my bike immediately dug into the plastic grass and lifted a section of it up then unfortunately my right leg connected with it and got stuck.

“I immediately felt the pain and the x-ray exam revealed the fracture of the right ankle.”