Andrea Iannone will be forced to ride injured for the second consecutive Grand Prix after being diagnosed with a hairline fracture to his funny bone. The Italian rode at Le Mans just days after dislocating his shoulder and after the news of his MRI scan on Monday, Iannone is bracing himself for another weekend of riding through the pain barrier.
“For sure on Sunday I will race at Mugello but it’s going to be difficult for me to be 100% fit. A couple of days ago I stopped taking pain-killers and yesterday I did an MRI scan. Unfortunately they found a hairline fracture at the tip of my funny bone, and to be sincere that was a bit of a nasty surprise. The swelling still causes me a lot of pain and I am continuing to do laser therapy in an attempt to get it to go down as soon as possible. In any case, I’ll have to grit my teeth like I did at Le Mans, because it’s far too important for me and for Ducati to have a good race in front of the Mugello fans.”
Ducati teammate Andrea Dovizioso trails Valentino Rossi by 19 points in the title chase and after a successful recent test at Mugello, the 29 year old is hopeful of making inroads into that deficit on home soil.
“I believe that we can be competitive at Mugello because we have tested at this track recently and we were quick. In addition the team is very motivated: we are at Mugello and this is Ducati’s home race, so we all have that extra incentive to do well. At the last race however we were missing a little ‘something’ and so we are going to have to continue to work hard throughout this weekend.”
