Drama for Bendsneyder in Japan

As soon as the red lights went out for the Grand Prix of Japan, Remy Gardner came off the line well. The talented Australian was fighting in a very competitive group for 22 long and hot laps to eventually end up in 16th place, but was upgraded to P15 following a disqualification. On the other side, Bo Bendsneyder was gritting his teeth from the start on, he was fighting hard, but struggling to find a decent pace, until his engine broke on the last lap, whereby the Dutch rookie suffered an open fracture to his left tibia. Bendsneyder is already in the hospital for further checks and has to undergo surgery.

Hervé PONCHARAL – Team Manager:

“At first, before we say anything about the Tech3 Moto2 race, I would like to say that I’m deeply sad and concerned about what happened to Bo. In the very last lap of the race, his engine broke and a part of the engine has been flying out and hit his left leg and the result was apparently what the medical report told us, before he was airlifted to the local hospital, an open fracture of his left tibia, which is a big shame. There is nothing he could do, he didn’t even crash, but just parked the bike and was in a lot of pain to find out that his left tibia was broken. Unbelievable, unlucky accident and I’m just hoping we can have Bo back before the end of the year. There is nothing we can say about that, except that this is maybe the unluckiest thing that can ever happen to a rider, so we hope it’s going to be fixed quickly and he can fly back home, recover and rest as soon as possible. We wish him a speedy recovery! It’s a bad moment to have that happen because it’s the first of three back to back flyaway races. It’s always a bad feeling, we have to pack everything and fly out to Australia and one of us is staying here. It’s not the way, we like to handle the situation and care about our rider, so I really hope that there will come better days in the near future for Bo. Anyway, after the great result of Buriram we were expecting another strong race here in Motegi. We remembered last year, when Xavi Vierge was front row in the dry and ended up on the podium in full wet conditions, so we knew the Mistral 610 has always been quite fast and good here in Japan, but the level is so high, it’s extremely close. Remy did a good Qualifying, while Bo was a bit further down the grid. Remy got an ok start and was in a very strong group all race long, he never gave up and stayed there. But anyway, she was fighting with names like Aegerter and Pasini, which shows how though and competitive the whole class is. Clearly, Remy is riding well, he is pushing. It’s a pity we couldn’t make any point, but we are still positive about him, as he is improving as a rider. The next round is his home Grand Prix, which hopefully gives him an extra boost.”

Race results:

Source: motogp.com, tech3 racing