MotoGP Brno: Suzuki wildcard Guintoli riding with two broken ribs
Suzuki's Sylvain Guintoli has revealed that a crash in the Suzuka 8 Hours race last weekend left him riding in this weekend's Brno MotoGP round with two broken ribs
Guintoli finished 10th in the prestigious endurance race with the Yoshimura Suzuki team alongside Takuya Tsuda and Bradley Ray after having a crash with a backmarker in the early stages.
His Brno appearance is his second MotoGP wildcard run of 2018 at Brno but as the pain gradually worsened ahead of the race in the Czech Republic, Guintoli had an X-ray on Saturday and the extent of his injuries were discovered.
"Unfortunately I crashed in the Suzuka 8 Hours last weekend and the pain has been quite bad," Guintoli, who qualified 21st, explained.
"I did an X-ray at lunchtime today and I've got two broken ribs so now I know why I am in pain.
"It is actually getting worse so [I'm] trying to manage this. This is not great, I wouldn't recommend riding GP bikes with broken ribs.
"That is not the most comfortable but it's going well. We are assessing new parts and riding with some different parts and we're going to do that [in testing] on Monday as well. All good.
"We tried some painkillers for the qualifying - that worked, it just takes the edge off basically.
"Still quite painful but there is nothing really you can do with ribs, you have to rest and wait. So, I'll do that after Monday."
Guintoli added that his job as Suzuki's official test rider has been going well, and feels that it would be "logical" for him to continue in the same role in 2019.
"The way we've been working from last year, and this year with the test team and [doing] wildcards and the Suzuka 8 Hours, [means] for me it is really logical [to continue].
"It is a really good project. I'm really enjoying doing it.
"[It] seems like it is working for Suzuki as well, and looks like it is a really good collaboration so we will see, this should be defined in the next few months."
Guintoli is due to make at least one more wildcard appearance with Suzuki before the end of the season.
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