WSBK: Jonathan Rea In Surgery to Miss Aragon Round

Jonathan Rea underwent surgery today to repair a broken right radius, and will miss this weekend’s World Superbike round at Motorland Aragon. The Castrol Honda rider suffered the injury, along with a now-ubiquitous broken collarbone and some injuries to his right foot during a warm-up crash at last weekend’s Misano round. Rea will not be replaced this weekend, leaving only teammate Ruben Xaus to ride for the team at Aragon.

Rea fractured his right radius and left clavicle in the crash at Misano’s Turn 11 on Sunday. That day he explained, “I had a crash yesterday which needed some stitches in my arm and then a 230kph crash this morning at one of the fastest corners on the calendar.” Rea continued, “Of course, I’m frustrated and I have some injuries that I want to take time to heal properly. We’ll have to miss Aragon next week, unfortunately, but Brno is a month off and the doctors tell me that the break in my arm would normally keep someone off work for three weeks.”

Rea’s radial surgery was scheduled for Wednesday, but he tweeted this morning, “Woke up to my phone ringing. It was my surgeon asking if I’d had breakfast? I hadn’t so I got an earlier slot. No time to get nervous now!” The earlier surgery will give the rider more time to recover, though he is optimistic for a quick recovery and good weekend for his teammate at a home round for the Spaniard.

“I’ll be rooting for Ruben and the guys, of course, and I hope they can go well there, spurred on by a bit of local support,” said Rea. “I’m so disappointed to be missing the Aragon round because when we rode a couple of really cold laps there last year I did enjoy the layout. I like riding at new circuits and it would have been useful to get some data from there,” he added.

Team manager Ronald ten Kate noted, “Jonathan not being able to ride is obviously a major set-back for us and it’s the first time he hasn’t been with us since 2008. We all wish him a very speedy recovery and hope that he can be back to fitness again for Brno.” He also explained, “We don’t have a replacement rider fixed because, with Misano and Aragon being back-to-back races, time was very short.”