Following his 230km/h crash at the A-Style TT Assen and the full assessment of his injuries by trusted orthopaedic specialist Dr. Arthur Ting, John Hopkins underwent knee and ankle surgery on Monday and has been told he will need three weeks of complete rest on his damaged leg before an extensive rehabilitation programme can commence.
It had already been confirmed that Hopkins would miss the trips to Laguna Seca and Sachsenring, after he was diagnosed as having sustained a fracture to the bottom of his left tibia, reopened a previous fracture also in the left tibia and fractured the lateral malleolus, at the top of his left ankle.
Further examination by Dr. Ting also revealed a tibial plateau fracture just below the knee, and damage to the meniscus (cartilage), which was causing Hopkins´ knee joint to lock. Surgery took place on Monday to reset the bones in the ankle and repair and reattached the meniscus in the knee.
As a result of the operation Hopkins will not be able to bear any weight on his damaged left leg for three weeks, after which he will undergo extensive rehab, with a full recovery from his injuries expected to take from six to eight weeks in total – meaning that returning to action at Brno in the Czech Republic after the summer break is an optimistic but achievable goal.
Hopkins has already battled back from a painful injury this season after he ruptured his groin in winter testing and he now faces another hard slog as he attempts to turn his difficult debut season with Kawasaki around.
Michael Bartholemy, Kawasaki´s Competition Manager, commented, `I am sorry for John, as I know he was looking forward to racing in front of his home crowd at Laguna Seca, where he always enjoys a lot of support. But it´s just not possible; he has had surgery to fix the injuries he sustained at Assen, and now he needs sufficient recovery time to ensure that he´s fully fit before he makes his racing return.´
`Obviously we are hoping that this return will come in the Czech Republic Grand Prix,´ continued Bartholemy, `but we will be monitoring John´s recovery very closely and we have no intention of putting him back on the bike before he´s ready. If this means he doesn´t race at Brno, then that´s how it will be, because we don´t want to risk making things worse by allowing him to return before he is fully recovered.´
The `Team Green´ boss added, `Now we know the full extent of John's injuries we are looking at the possibility of running a replacement rider at Laguna Seca. We will make a further announcement about this ahead of this weekend´s German Grand Prix.´