Michael van der Mark out of Estoril WorldSBK with hip injury

Michael van der Mark has been forced out of the third round of the 2022 WorldSBK Championship after fracturing his hip in a heavy tumble during FP1 at Estoril.

The Dutchman fell from his BMW M 1000 RR at Turn 10 early on in the 45mins session to bring out the red flag and force a brief stoppage.

With van der Mark clearly in discomfort as he was tended to by marshals, a trip to hospital has now confirmed him with a fracture of the neck femur (located around the hip) fracture, ruling him out for the remainder of the race weekend.

The new injury is the latest blow to afflict the five-time race winner this season. Indeed, van der Mark has already endured a long road to recovery since breaking his leg in a cycling accident a month prior to the start of the year.

Forced to miss the opening round of the season in Aragon, van der Mark was back in action for Round 2 at his home Assen event despite visibly still struggling to walk on the damaged leg. However, this hip injury - on the same side as his broken leg - could now threaten to push him back onto the sidelines.

It is the third successive round BMW has been hampered by injury woes with van der Mark's absence from Aragon - when he was replaced by impressive stand-in Ilya Mikhalchik - and Eugene Laverty forced to miss Assen after a crash on Friday.

Round 4 of the WorldSBK Championship in Misano takes place in three weeks’ time.