The riders of Avintia Racing had a difficult weekend at Mugello. Héctor Barberá and Loris Baz had arrived with high hopes and lots of anticipation at the Grand Prix of Italy and the home track of Ducati, but from the first day, things didn’t go the way as planned and Sunday wasn’t any different. Héctor Barberá finished the race in twelfth position and took some valuable points again, but was outside the top ten for the first time this season. Nevertheless, the Spaniard defended his eighth place in the world championship classification.
Team-mate Loris Baz ran into bad luck when he was taken out by another rider in the first corner of the race. In the incident, Baz suffered multiple fractures and dislocations in his right foot and will have to go undergo surgery in Switzerland next week. After the examinations in the circuit hospital, Dr. Xavier Mir, Medical Director of MotoGP, confirmed that Loris suffered dislocations of the five metatarsophalangeal joints in his right foot, and diaphyseal fractures of four toes in the same foot. While Baz was still in the circuit hospital and under anesthesis, the dislocations were set and on Tuesday, he will be operated in the hospital La Tour at Meyrin/Geneve, where Dr. Finn Mahler, director of sport medicine, will insert plates to fix the multiple fractures in his right foot. At the moment, it is unclear whether Baz will be able to start at the upcoming Grand Prix of Catalunya. Everything will depend from his recovery after the surgery.
HÉCTOR BARBERÁ #8 / @HectorBarbera P12
“This was a weekend to forget. Everyday things got more and more difficult and we were not able to show our real potential. I don’t know if its good or bad, but my crew chief says that I have to realize that we are racing with a two year old bike, and we are doing the same lap times that the factory team did in the past. It’s difficult to go more on the limit than the factory team and we have reach the same lap times or even improved them. It’s clear that my rivals have better machinery and to beat them in fast tracks like this is almost impossible. At the end of the day, we finished another race and we still the best Ducati in the standings, something that we could not even dream with when we started the season. We can’t do more with the bike we have and I think that the team and myself deserve to have a chance, because we always want more.”
LORIS BAZ #76 / @lorisbaz DNF
“The race was incredible short for me. I did a good start but it was a lot of traffic on the inside and it was difficult to overtake in the first turn, so I decided to get the outside line, but suddenly someone hit me and I crashed. From the first moment I realized that my foot was broken. I got fractures on the second, third, fourth and fifth metatarsus, and a displacement on the first one. I got set the first one at the circuit medical centre and I will go to the hospital at Geneve on Tuesday to fix the rest. I don’t know How long will take the recovery because is a difficult place and can swell a lot. I will follow the doctor instructions because I don’t want to come back soon and take risks for the next races. More than the race I’ll be disappointed if I can do the test on after the race in Barcelona, because I really need it.”
