Haga undeterred by Monza injury

Championship leader Noriyuki Haga maintains he is suffering no serious side effects from his 148mph collision with a bird at Monza just five days ago.

The Xerox Ducati rider suffered a heavily bruised right arm in the first lap incident in race two, which caused him to crash on lap three.

In the opening free practice session at Kyalami, Haga ran at the front early on, but dropped to ninth at the finish, 0.464 seconds behind his factory Ducati team-mate and pole setter Michel Fabrizio.

Speaking to MCN, Haga said:

“I’m not really in any pain, but my right arm is almost twice the size as my left because of all the swelling. The problem is that my leathers are tight on my arm and because we came straight here from Monza there was no time to make any changes.

“I am confident that tomorrow and Sunday there will be no problem, but my only concern is that if my leathers are too tight it could mean that my arm gets tired quicker.”

Haga is receiving regular treatment from the Clinica Mobile along with Troy Bayliss’ former trainer and now Ducati trainer and physio Leigh Bryan.