Although he won both races at the first “Showdown” round of the British Superbike Championship at Donington Park to take the points lead, Samsung Crescent Suzuki’s John Hopkins was still suffering a lot of pain from the finger injuries he received from the practice crash at Brno during his third cameo ride on the Suzuki GSV-R MotoGP bike five weeks ago. Refusing to take painkillers to avoid possibly compromising his skill during the Donington BSB races, once the adrenalin wore off, the American found the pain hadn’t decreased in the days afterward, and fears that he may have caused more injury convinced him to see his surgeon back in the U.S.
An X-ray image shows the micro-plates...
An X-ray image shows the micro-plates and screws in Hopkins' middle finger to help stabilize the joint and speed up healing.
"There was a lot of pain in my fingers at Donington Park and I knew it wasn't right and in fact I was very worried I'd aggravated the injury. So I rushed back to see my surgeon on Monday.
"The X-rays showed that my middle finger wasn't locating properly in the second knuckle. Fortunately the bone area that had previously been crushed was now nicely healed and so my surgeon was able to put in screws and plates so as to stabilize the finger.
"I could feel straight away that the finger was much stronger and it's improved every day since. I'm now very confident that I'll be able to ride at near-100% at Silverstone next weekend."
Silverstone was the scene of Hopkins’ stunning Superpole showing that saw the wildcard entry take his first World Superbike Championship pole position ahead of the rest of the WSBK field on the way to a fifth in Race One and seventh in Race Two.