Valentino Rossi suffered a high-side crash in the second practice session on Saturday morning at the Gran Premio d’Italia. ‘The doctor’ will thus, miss his home GP at Mugello for the first time. The defending World Champion fell at Turn 13, the top of the fast chicane, as his M1 highsided and threw him from the bike. Rossi was in immense pain, as was stretchered off the track and taken directly to the medical centre, where he underwent X-rays which confirmed a displaced and exposed fracture of his right tibia.

It is not yet certain how long would be his time away from the sport. However, doctors have confirmed that the injury is quite serious. “It’s an injury more serious than we thought, because it’s an exposed fracture with the bone protruding from the skin. It is serious, it could be a couple of months, but it is too early to say just yet. He remained calm, but having seen the images he could already see it was a nasty fall.” But, very characteristic to the man – he managed a thumps-up just before he was stretchered-off, although he must have been in immense pain. Rossi was then flown by helicopter to the Careggi Hospital in Florence. He will have an operation this afternoon (Saturday). Here’s three2tango wishing him a speedy recovery.

UPDATE : Valentino Rossi underwent a successful operation at the Centro Traumatologico Ortopedico (Centre for Orthopaedic Trauma) in Florence, Italy on Saturday afternoon to repair the fractured right tibia he sustained in a crash in the Saturday-morning practice session at the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM. After the operation, Doctor Buzzi said, “The surgery had good results; the alignment was good and the bone is now stable. The wound remains open, as is usual in these cases, and it will be stitched in the next few days with another short surgery.”

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