Pramac’s Andrea Iannone and Ben Spies may be smiling in this picture at the 2013 Wrooom, but the two riders are still fighting to regain fitness ahead of the first official MotoGP test at Sepang early next month.
The MotoGP rookie revealed that following his nose operation for a deviated septum, a further medical further check-up revealed he also has been suffering from a cracked vertebra and the injury still doesn’t allow him to train properly.
However he expects that in Malaysia to be in better shape, while team mate Ben Spies is in slightly worse physical conditions following the AC separation repair surgery he had to undergo late last October after crashing during a very wet Sepang race.
Normal recovery time for this type of surgery is from 8 to 12 weeks, but Spies recovery is taking longer than expected as he revealed during the Wrooom event as he sat out all the extracurricular activies, like skiing and snowboarding, because he still hasn’t built up enough muscle and strength in his shoulder and didn’t want to needlessly risk hurting himself.
“I didn’t think it would take so long and be so arduous, but we have to put up with it and still find a way to train, but I’m not in any pain.
I’m currently at 60 to 70% fitness and hope to be at 80% for the first Sepang test so I’ll be able to to ride and do what I’m required to do.
I’m not going to be reeling off qualifying laps and doing race simulations, but I’ll be fast enough to test and learn about the bike and the team, and maybe this situation will be even helpful, so I can study everything in detail, and then try to be ready for the second Sepang test,” commented Spies.
The American has no idea of what to expect from the Ducati Desmosedici GP13 when he gets on it for the first time next month: “I spoke with Nicky and Andrea, but we didn’t go into details regarding the bike.
I just wanted to know how the recent tests went.
Andrea is fairly positive, and he said he was impressed by what he saw in Valencia.
At least that was his first impression.
He’s heard all sorts of horror stories.
I think the bike is very good.
It’s better than it looked in the past two years.
They’ve simply made too many changes in too little time.
The package has never been fully exploited.
This needs to be done, before you throw in a new swingarm, frame and other stuff.
That would be the proper way to develop a motorcycle.
That’s how we will proceed in the future.
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