Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat has spoken about the crash that finished his participation at the Silverstone MotoGP round, saying that after the crash his leg was bent into an S-shape and he had lost a lot of blood.
Rabat went down at the Northamptonshire track at the same time as Alex Rins and then was struck by Franco Morbidelli’s rider’s RC213V just as he got to his feet in the closing stages of fourth practice, shortly after heavy rain fell which caused multiple riders to crash at Stowe.
“At Silverstone we saw how important it is to have the Medical Team in MotoGP and I want to thank all of them for their great work. I also want to thank to those who operated on me in England because they did a great job. I want to return as soon as possible, but I will do what the doctors say,” said Rabat.
“The priority is to recover as soon as possible, but in the end, those who rule are them based on the evolution of the leg. The worst of the accident was the pain, which practically has not let me sleep. I never thought about losing my leg, although I saw it twisted like an S when I was laying on the gravel.
“I lost a lot of blood and I got scared. I have learned a lesson and from now on every time I crash again I will look back. At that moment I saw that Rins was warning me to get out of there, and I saw Franco’s bike coming very fast towards me, I stand up and the bike hit my leg, otherwise it would have been much worse.”
Doctors have refused to put a date on Rabat’s return to the grid and it looks likely his place will be taken by test rider Michele Pirro at San Marino this weekend.
“We have to give it time and we can not fix a date. Tito will recover as soon as possible, but I dare not give a return date. These kind of fractures take time to consolidate. It will be necessary to evaluate the moment he will be able to comeback riding his bike, and the risks that it entails,” said Dr. Ignacio Ginebreda.
“We have planned several actions to accelerate consolidation to the maximum. You can get on the bike before the fractures are fully consolidated, but you always have to assess the existing risks. The most important thing is that the fractures are correctly fixed and ligaments and joints have not been affected.”