DATA-LOGGING equipment has revealed
Regis Laconi was traveling at 20kph faster than other riders prior to his neck-breaking crash at Kyalami.
It appears that, after examining the data, Laconi had gone into the corner a full 20kph faster than any other Ducati that session, ending up slamming into a track-lining wall.
Under further investigation it has been discovered that there are parts of Regis' gums on the inside of his lid. The impact to his head was so forceful that his helmet deformed enough to smash into the Frenchman's mouth.
Thankfully, the Frenchman is now on the mend has been awake and chatting with his friend and manager Paul-Louis Collignon, who has reported to the French national press that the rider is able to hold short conversations.
But it sounds as though Regis is still struggling to sort things out in the grey matter at the moment because Collignon says that multi-lingual Laconi keeps switching between french, italian and english without pauses in the languages as he talks.
Collignon has also reported that Laconi is: "Eating like a monster and has found full mobility now," which - after the worries about paralysis in his left leg - is terrific news. The paralysis was, thankfully, only temporary, it would seem.
Laconi is now flying back to France to continue his rehabilitation. The work to repair the neck vertebrae C3 and C5 has reportedly gone well (Laconi already had C6 and C7 fused after a huge crash in 1997).
Now the attention is turning to a track inspection of Kyalami to try and determine if the circuit could be made safer to avoid a similar outcome if another rider was to highside where Regis did on the first day of the WSB outing three weeks ago.
Three-language chatting or not - he's a lucky bloke.
