Yamaha team boss Paul Denning has revealed there is “no chance” of Jonathan Rea returning at the Portimao WorldSBK round after he suffered a test crash.
Rea crashed at the Southern Loop (Turn 2) during the first Free Practice session earlier in the week.
The Ulsterman sustained multiple fractures when the bike landed on his left foot, resulting in the Yamaha rider being sent home.
The six-time WorldSBK champion could not receive immediate surgery on the fractures due to massive swelling.
Rea’s projected timeline remains unclear, but Yamaha has indicated that a return at the second round in Portimao is out of the question.
As a result, the earliest opportunity for the Northern Irishman to kick off his season would be at the Assen round from April 11th-13th, a track where he has won 17 times.
“I think sad is the word, just sad to be away from the team, away from the bike, and particularly as he was starting to do so well and the flow was coming,” said Denning to WorldSBK.com.
“He’s super disappointed but he’s back home. He’s seen a surgeon, and the next course of action will be… I don’t want to share anything that’s medically his private information, but he’s on it and doing everything he can to be ready as soon as he possibly can.
“Jonathan, all things being equal as we know today, unfortunately has no chance of testing or racing at Portimao, in mid and end of March are the two dates which are just too early for the complexity of the injury to heal, so we’ll have two riders on track but who it will be is very much to be confirmed.”
Jonathan Rea left feeling ‘gutted’ after Phillip Island crash
“Honestly it was going so well, no issues, good plan, started fast – top four or five.
“I was working through it and was just about to put my first fresh set of tyres in for the last 20 minutes and on my first flying lap I just lost the rear, and it gripped, traction control picked it up abruptly and kicked me up, then I landed on the bike, and it threw me over, that was fine, I landed fine, but the bike was cartwheeling and landed right on my foot and did quite a bit of damage.
“They can’t operate right now as there is massive swelling, so I’m getting a few different opinions from different consultants, asking about surgery, not surgery, a timeframe, so I don’t know much right now.
“We made a small step forward on the bike. I’m just gutted, it doesn’t take much in racing to just keep that snowball effect rolling.
“We had a good winter test; it’s undone with that. I just have to take my medicine with this one and come back stronger.
“[It’s] day by day really, I don’t really have a target. It doesn’t take a surgeon to look through the CT scans to see the damage, a bit of hyperbaric chamber and recovery, but I’m gutted.”
