Aruba Ducati’s Davide Giugliano could already be out of this weekend’s Phillip Island World Superbike opener after a big crash in testing today cracked two vertebrae.

The Italian was pinged over the highside of his Panigale on the exit of MCG corner and CAT scans at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne revealed two small fractures of the L1 and L2 vertebrae.

Tomorrow a specialist at Alfred Hospital will see Giugliano to make a decision and determine the length of the Italian rider’s recovery period but it looks unlikely he will be in action in Australia.

“I’m very upset about this afternoon’s crash because things had been going very well. I had good feeling with the bike by the end of session one and I was able to lap with consistently fast times,” said the Italian.

“It was a bad fall and this evening’s CAT has unfortunately revealed two tiny fractures, so I’m really worried that this might compromise my first races of the 2015 season.”

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