Two-time World Superbike Champion James Toseland has been forced to announce his retirement from racing.
The British rider’s long battle to return to fitness after the wrist injury he sustained in a crash with his BMW Italia Superbike during private test at the Motorland Aragon circuit last March , has ended his racing career after competing in his 201st Superbike race just last Sunday at Nurburgring, where he crashed under a torrential rain shower in race 2.
Unable to properly move his wrist, the 31-year old Yorkshireman has been told that it is no longer safe for him to continue his career and his retirement will go into effect immediately.
Toseland won the 2004 Superbike World Championship with the Fila Ducati team and then in 2007 with Ten Kate Honda and in 2008 moved to MotoGP to spend two season’s riding for Herve Poncharal’s Yamaha Tech3 team and after a gruelling 2009, returned to World Superbikes where he had another tough year with Yamaha Sterilgarda and in 2011 joined the new BMW Italia World Superbike team.
Here’s the letter that he posted on his personal website: I wanted to write you a personal letter to explain the factors that have forced my early retirement and to take the oportunity to thank you for all of the amazing support that you have given me throughout my career.
As you all know, I’ve had a tough time since injuring my right wrist during a testing crash at Aragon in Spain earlier this year.
At the time of first seeing my Consultant, he warned that the damage to my wrist could be career-threatening, but we both committed to doing everything we could to ensure that I could continue racing.
Having struggled through a couple of races and then crashing out in the terrible conditions at Nurburgring in Germany, I went back to see the Consultant, Mike Hayton, this week and the diagnosis was the worst I could have prepared myself for.
The easiest way to explain it is that I don’t have enough range of movement in my wrist to race professionally and no amount of physiotherapy is going to improve that.
This all led to the verdict was that it’s no longer safe for me to continue a career in motorcycle racing.
I have to put the safety of the other riders on track first, as well as thinking about my own safety.
Knowing that I will never again be fully fit to race at the highest level, it’s also unfair for me to occupy a great seat in WSBK that a young, talented rider who is fully fit could take better advantage of.
Obviously, the decision has been a difficult one and it’s been really hard to take the advice of my Consultant and admit defeat on this occasion but I really have no other option left at this stage.
I’ve tried everything possible for the last few months but the sad truth is that none of it has worked and my wrist will never fully heal enough for me to operate the throttle properly and navigate right hand turns.
You have been amazing in the best and worst times of my career and it’s been almost like having a second family to support me through my career.
So, thank you for everything and I hope that I have done you proud.