Shakey aiming for Donington after Spanish surgery

Defending MCE British Superbike champion Shane Byrne has suffered an early end to his 2015 pre-season testing, after a highside at Spain’s Almeria circuit left him with a broken left hand. The damage to his hand required surgery, which was completed last night at a Spanish hospital.

“I had a crash and unfortunately it was a big one. Even more unfortunately I’ve broken my left hand which resulted in an operation last night to fix it. The long and the short of it is one of my knuckles disappeared down into my hand and broke it. There’s no point in dwelling on it, though, and I was operated on and with some screws and plates (a meccano set!) it’s all been put back together so i’m already on the mend.” 

With a heavy testing schedule planned for the next week in Spain, byrne will now be in a struggle both to be race fit and to continue development of his PBM Kawasaki in time for the opening round of the series at Donington in a month.

However, the five time champion remains positive that his team in the UK will be able to get him back on a bike sooner, and he’s already targeting a return for the Donington test in the last week of this month. 

“The doctor has said I need a month to heal up and be right which takes me exactly to the first round, but I’m planning on heading back to the UK tomorrow now to jump in a hyperbaric chamber and get the bones lasered. I’m hoping that’ll increase healing time considerably. I’ve supposedly got to keep this cast on for 2-3 weeks but I’ll see what my guy in the UK says and do absolutely everything I possibly can to be ready for the Donington park test in 3 weeks.”