Honda Racing has updated the condition of rider John McGuinness, who crashed out of the North West 200 Superbike qualifying on Thursday, May 11.
McGuinness was transported to the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital post-crash, and has since been diagnosed with a compound fracture to his right lower leg among other injuries.
While in theatre on Thursday night it was not possible to plate the leg as initially thought due to the extent of the injury, a following surgery will aim to fit an external fixator. In addition to his leg injuries, McGuinness also suffered four broken vertebrae and has three broken back ribs, John will wear a cast for up to six weeks in treatment for the vertebrae. John will remain at Royal Victoria Hospital for around one week as part of the recuperation process.
Honda Racing received John’s bike from the race organisers and is in the process of performing a detailed analysis of the bike and ECU data at its headquarters in Louth to determine if the bike was the cause of McGuinness’ crash. As a result of the crash, the team withdrew from the Superstock and Superbike races at the North West 200 which sidelined McGuinness’ teammate, Guy Martin.
The team will next be on track at Castle Combe in a couple of weeks’ time as part of its preparation for the Isle of Man TT.
“Unfortunately John’s incident at Primrose Hill during qualifying has resulted in quite a substantial injury to his right Tibia and Fibula. It is a real blow to John and the team, but he’s got an incredible amount of spirit and is in very good hands with the medical staff at the Royal Victoria Hospital, said team manager Jonny Twelvetrees. We now need to determine what happened and will sit out the Superstock and Superbike races, get back to Louth to analyse John’s bike and re-group ahead of our next test at Castle Combe in a couple of weeks before we head to the Isle of Man.”
While Twelvetrees sounds confident that the team will be present at the Isle of Man TT, it is almost certain that John McGuinness will miss this year’s event due to the extent of his injuries.
