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Iker Lecuona is ready to return to action, following the fracture of the fourth metatarsal bone in his left foot suffered during Qualifying at the season-opening round at Phillip Island. In fact, the Spanish rider rejoined his teammate Xavi Vierge and the entire Honda HRC team in Portimao, Portugal, with the goal of getting back on his CBR1000RR-R in the second round of the year.
Lecuona has been working hard over the past month to recover from the injury, undergoing physiotherapy, hyperbaric chamber therapy and physical training; but before tackling FP1 on Friday morning, he will have to undergo a medical checkup on Thursday to receive the necessary clearance to resume racing.
"I'm really happy to be back in Portimao. Honestly, I can say that both physically and mentally I feel better than I did before the first round. Over the past four weeks, I've had the chance to recover not only from the foot injury I sustained in Australia, but also from my other issues, like my ribs and shoulder, which weren't yet 100% a month ago," Iker said.
The Valencian rider is confident and eager to get back on his Honda. "The doctors are also pleased with how the bone's recovering and with my overall condition. This has helped me feel much better mentally too, because I now feel physically better than I have in months," he underlined, "That said, I've had very little time on the bike over the winter. In Australia, it was basically the first time I really rode, and I'd just started to find my speed again before the crash in qualifying. So, I know I'll need time to fully regain that speed and the feeling with the bike, and that's the real challenge now. As for the track, I really like Portimao. It's a fun circuit that has given us some decent races and good pace in the past. Let's see how it goes, I'm feeling good and ready to come back."
On the other side of the Honda box, Vierge is also ready to return to action at the Algarve circuit. Where he got to complete more than 100 laps in the two-day test on March 14 and 15, working with his team on various electronic solutions.
"I'm really looking forward to the Round 2 of the World SBK season. Portimao is always an amazing track to ride, and we've had several productive test days here, both recently and in the past, so we have a lot of data to rely on as we prepare for the race weekend," said Vierge. "We've been fast on this track on several occasions, which gives us extra motivation to try and achieve that again, no matter what weather conditions we find. It looks like it will be warmer than it was for the test two weeks ago, so we will see if we can feel as good as we usually do in cooler conditions. The team is ready to work hard, analyze the information we collected during testing and build the best possible base setup so we can start the weekend in the right way. It's also great to have Iker back with us; with both of us on the track, we'll have even more data to compare and hopefully make good progress together over the weekend."
