Gino Rea experienced a tough weekend at the Misano Grand Prix, battling with a recently broken hand which proved more difficult than imagined. The Londoner fought through pain all weekend and had his bike not stopped in the final minutes of qualifying, Gino would have qualified inside the top 20. With 7 minutes remaining Rea had moved into 17th position but soon got bumped down when he was forced to retire form the session, leaving him in 21st for the grid.

 

Gino made a good start to the race moving up into 17th position within the opening laps. Riding with strong painkillers, Rea was hesitant and lost some positions but soon began to get into a rhythm and improved his lap times. Battling in the top 20, Gino was confident that he could progress and make more positions up until he hit a false neutral, making him run off the circuit and drop back to 23rd. From then on, the gap was too big to narrow and Rea’s hand started to get worse, losing strength lap by lap.

 

Gino adds: "A tough weekend for me. I had a good start to the race and improved up to 17th. I was battling in a group but hit false neutral & went straight on at turn 1. I went back to 23rd and soon lost a lot of strength in my broken hand and I couldn't stop the bike anywhere. My left hand was compensating for it and it cut open the skin on my palm and I ended up 22nd. I'm happy with our potential this weekend considering my injury, it was so difficult to minimise the use of my right hand at such a physical circuit.

 

"Now I'm looking forward to recovering my hand and moving onto Aragon. Huge thanks to all of my team for their hard work, I hope we can have a stronger result at Aragon."

 

The next MotoGP race takes place on 29th September at Aragon, Spain.

 

You can read Gino's latest  September blog on how the season has gone so far here.

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