Guintoli: Now I know why I'm in pain!

Suzuki test rider and wild-card Sylvain Guintoli faces a gruelling Czech Republic MotoGP race, having discovered on Saturday that he has two broken ribs.

The injury was sustained a week earlier at the Suzuka 8 Hours, but the Frenchman went on qualify 21st out of the 26 riders at Brno.

Guintoli: Now I know why I'm in pain!

Suzuki test rider and wild-card Sylvain Guintoli faces a gruelling Czech Republic MotoGP race, having discovered on Saturday that he has two broken ribs.

The injury was sustained a week earlier at the Suzuka 8 Hours, but the Frenchman went on qualify 21st out of the 26 riders at Brno.

"I crashed in the race at Suzuka last weekend and the pain has been quite bad. So I did an X-ray at lunchtime and I've got two broken ribs! So now I know why I'm in pain and it's getting worse." said Guintoli, whose Q1 time was just over one-second from Suzuki regular Alex Rins.

"We're trying to manage this, but it's not great. I wouldn't recommend riding a GP bike with broken ribs! When the bike starts weaving and you have to hold on… and you've got no choice; if you don't hold on, you’re off.

"I can feel the ribs moving. It's going to be painful that's for sure. We tried some painkillers for qualifying that just takes the edge off basically. Still it's quite painful but there's nothing really you can do. You have to rest it and wait. I'll do that after Monday.

"But otherwise it's going well. We are assessing new parts this weekend and we'll continue to do that on Monday as well."

Asked for his verdict on how the GSX-RR stacks up against the rest of the MotoGP field, Guintoli replied:

"Well Suzuki now is one of the top bikes definitely. From the start of the year, we're back in the top three regularly and I think tomorrow could be another strong race pace from Andrea and Alex with the leaders.

"The difference from bike to bike are really small and everybody is quite close so it'll be interesting to see how things go tomorrow.

"We're working on every front to try to improve the performance. There's nowhere where the bike is weak. The bike now is very strong and it's about using the package and making the tyre work in the right way to get the result on Sunday. The bike is really close now."

Guintoli qualified 25th in his earlier 2018 wild-card appearance, at Catalunya, where he fell early in the race.

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