Lorenzo will recover “without doubt” for Qatar MotoGP race

MotoGP’s Dr. Xavier Mir has estimated Jorge Lorenzo will be “without doubt” ready for the 2019 season opener in Qatar and his scaphoid fracture was unrelated to his recent left wrist injuries.

Lorenzo underwent surgery yesterday (January 21) on the broken scaphoid in his left wrist which involved inserting a titanium screw to fix the bone in place to begin his recovery.

Repsol Honda has confirmed the five-time world champion will miss the Sepang test and will target a return to action at the second and final pre-season test in Qatar from February 23-25 before Lorenzo’s Honda race debut at the same venue on March 10.

Speaking after the operation, Dr. Mir confirmed the injury sustained during a training fall close to Verona last Saturday was “unrelated” to his recent left hand injuries suffered in a heavy crash during practice at the Thai MotoGP last October which ruled him out of four rounds for Ducati.

“It’s interesting that it’s the same wrist,” Mir told MotoGP.com. “On this wrist he’s had two injuries, one was an injury to the radius and then an injury to the ligament next to the scaphoid. In this case it was a fracture to the scaphoid itself and unrelated to the previous injury.

“The idea is to keep it immobilised for four days then at his home in Lugano he will start gentle rehabilitation.

“We’ll look at it again in around 10 days, then the idea is to make the rehabilitation more and more intensive so that he can recover for the Qatar test and, without doubt, for the race in Qatar.”

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With just over one month to recover before the Qatar test, Mir confirmed Lorenzo will be able to start full rehabilitation 10 days after the surgery – January 31 – which effectively gives the Spaniard three weeks to return to full fitness for the final test.

“The scaphoid is a bone that doesn’t heal easily, and for this reason they always – not just for professional athletes but normal people too – try to fix the bone with a minimally invasive technique,” Mir added.

“That involves passing a screw, specially made for scaphoids which means that when this injury would once have taken various months to mend, you can now begin rehabilitation after just ten days.”

Mir also operated on Lorenzo’s Repsol Honda team-mate Marc Marquez when he underwent scheduled left shoulder surgery in early December.

Both riders will be present at the team’s 2019 MotoGP launch in Madrid tomorrow (January 23).