Hannes Soomer has spoken about the crash in the FIM Endurance World Championship season-deciding Bol d’Or that left him with a dislocated shoulder and fractured arm.
The Superstock category winner in the 45th Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race was competing in the top-level Formula EWC category for the first time as Sylvain Guintoli’s replacement at BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team.
However, a crash while leading the Circuit Paul Ricard contest during the early hours of Sunday morning left the rising Estonian star with injuries and ultimately restricted title-chasing BMW Motorrad World Endurance Team to third in the final EWC standings.
Soomer said: “It was definitely not the Bol d’Or I was hoping for or what would have been possible. The beginning of the race was quite good, until the halfway point when I had a big crash during the night. It started with a small slide from the rear and I just could not save it and had a big highside. It was an unlucky incident, maybe I was pushing too hard in the night to keep the lead.
“I want to say sorry to the team and will learn from this. I dislocated my shoulder, suffered a fracture to my arm, and after that I was out and Markus [Reiterberger] and Ilya [Mykhalchyk] had to work really hard to finish the race. They are unbelievably strong and did an incredible job until the finish line to claim the best result they could get. I am disappointed about my crash but happy for the team to finish the season in the top three of the world championship.”
Original Source [ FIM EWC ]
