MotoGP: Bautista to replace Lorenzo at Phillip Island

After pulling out of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend on Friday, Jorge Lorenzo has elected to also miss this weekend’s race at Phillip Island due to his ongoing wrist injury.

The 31 year old Spaniard broke his wrist in Free Practice for the Thailand race and the injury is now known to be more serious than first predicted. 

Lorenzo is back in Europe for treatment and it remains to be seen whether he can return for the Malaysian race in just 12 days time.

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Following his withdrawal from the weekend, Lorenzo said: “The risk to displace the broken bone is part of the problem. It feels very bad on braking because my body and my brain doesn’t allow me to push my wrist in corner entry and it even makes me feel unsafe on the bike. It’s a shame because I felt like I had a good chance to win here.”

View this post on Instagram

After all my efforts to recover as fast as posible for Japan, this morning I tried to ride but from the first moment I felt this would be imposible. I’m very sad, specially because I think without the crashes I could arrive in one of my favourites tracks at my best with the Ducati to try to archive more victories for the team. The only thing I can do now is be patient and wait the time to do it’s work. Thanks for all your support. #JL99 #JapaneseGP

A post shared by Jorge Lorenzo (@jorgelorenzo99) on Oct 18, 2018 at 11:29pm PDT

Fellow Spaniard Alvaro Bautista has been given the call up to replace Lorenzo in the factory team.

The current Angel Nieto Ducati rider will make the jump up to the 2018 Ducati and will be keen to impress in what will be one of his last rides in MotoGP after signing to ride the new V4 Panigale in WSB in 2019.

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