Good recovery progress for Bautista, but not yet certain if he can race in Estoril
Álvaro Bautista received a positive update on his recovery from a fractured femur when the Spanish rider underwent a medical check at the Hospital USP San José de Madrid on Tuesday afternoon.
Dr Ángel Villamor examined the Rizla Suzuki rider, who fractured his left femur in Qatar, and X-rays revealed good progress in his recovery process, something which has strengthened Bautista’s determination to make his return at the Estoril round later this month.
“We’ve been looking at the X-rays they took of me this afternoon with Dr Villamor and it appears that the bone is forming well and there’s less risk of it not healing well,” Bautista explained to motogp.com.
“We’ve passed the first stage, and that means I should be able to start to push on little by little and start getting stronger in the leg, because I have lost a lot of strength and with less fear I can start to move the bone and regain full feeling. That’ll mean I can start exercising with a little resistance and start to speed up the recuperation process to be as quick as possible.”
Bautista has already been undertaking flexibility and mobility exercises, as well as completing sessions in a hyberbaric chamber. With the Portuguese GP arriving on the weekend of April 29th-May 1st, Bautista is eager to be fit in time to make his comeback.
“We still have 17 days before I need to get back on a bike. The doctor said everything is going reasonably quickly and that’s my objective. I have two weeks in which to work and gain strength in the leg. Before travelling to Estoril I will have another consultation with the medical team, they’ll do fresh X-rays to ensure everything’s fine and the idea is to return in Portugal,” said a hopeful Bautista.
“It’s still not 100% certain, but the only thing on my mind is returning and my aim is to do that in Estoril although it’ll be a decision for the medical team. They’ve told me that if I continue at this pace there is a good chance, but there is still a lot of hard work ahead if I want to get back to a suitable physical condition for MotoGP.”
Bautista admitted that attending the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez as a spectator caused some conflicting feelings: “I’ve never seen the race from that point of view and in addition to that I was very restricted, walking with crutches, getting tired… I’ve experienced a lot of envy seeing the other riders, I was eager to ride the bike and then on Sunday when I saw the race I felt even more angry because I saw all the crashes and it was a race of being calm, using your head and get a good result. But I’d rather not think about it anymore, it was a strange weekend, but the truth is that I also needed to be there for my team and because people are very interested after my injury and I received many messages of support. I wanted to make the effort as a Thankyou for all the people who cared about me.”
Source: motogp.com
