The first day of action in the penultimate round of the season proved to be a difficult one for the Fortuna Honda riders as the Grand Prix of Portugal got underway at Estoril. A heavy fall at the start of the afternoon session left Marco Melandri out of action and with plenty of set-up work still to do tomorrow. The Team Gresini rider ran wide in turn 9 and crashed, suffering a contusion to his left knee and a light trauma to his neck. X-rays carried out immediately in the Clinica Mobile ruled out a fracture but he was taken to hospital for a CAT scan as a precaution. Toni Elias also had a tough time despite lapping well in the morning. He also suffered the setback of a crash, in turn one, and could only manage the eleventh fastest time although he is confident of improving on that when the practice action resumes tomorrow.
Toni Elias (11th, 1’39 “217):”I’m not happy with this first day. I was hoping to be much higher up the order but the crash in the afternoon cost me a lot of time. It was my mistake – I went to deep and lost the front. I’m disappointed to be down in eleventh place because I like this track and we were unlucky today. Anyway, I’m confident that we can improve tomorrow and if everything goes to plan we can make a major step forward.”
Marco Melandri (crash):”It’s a shame about the crash because we were doing a good job. I probably went a bit too deep and ran onto the strip on the outside of the corner, It was a fast crash but it was a hard one and I bashed the inside of my left knee. I’m ok but I feel a little weak right now. The knee is really painful but thankfully the X-rays haven’t shown up any breaks.”
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