One of the most bizarre crashes at Donington Park took place in race one when the rear wheel of Maxime Berger's Ducati 1198 parted from the swingarm.
With Berger falling from the Ducati looping away beneath him the original thought to the rear wheel bounding down the track without it's bike was the result of the nut falling off, despite an R-clip securing the wheel to the swingarm.
The actual result was the rear hub shearing from the spokes and rather than the wheel failure taking place at a high-speed, like the catastrophic crash that left Robert Dunlop with severe injuries at the 1994 Isle of Man TT, Berger was lucky to escape uninjured at a slow corner.
The superbike rookie said: “I’m disappointed and incredulous. I never had to stop twice for so two strange reasons. The ring broke and I was lucky because it broke into a slow corner. I found myself on the ground without knowing what happened.”
As visible from the images below (courtesy of Linden Adams Photography) it is clear that the rear aluminium Oz wheel began to crack on the exit of Goddards.
