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Valentino Rossi’s MotoGP world title defence is over after snapping his shin bone in a crash during practice for the Italian grand prix at Mugello on Saturday.
The affable Italian, a nine-time world champion, has undergone surgery after coming off his Yamaha at 180km/h and landing hard on his right leg.
Rossi’s injury overshadowed qualifying for Sunday’s grand prix, with Spain’s Dani Pedrosa securing pole position as he aims to go for his first win of 2010.
Australian Casey Stoner will start the race third on the grid, joining Pedrosa and championship leader Jorge Lorenzo on the front-row at Mugello.
The head of the Mugello track’s medical facility, Dr Claudio Costa, confirmed Rossi’s surgery – with the injury possibly ruling him out for the rest of the year.
“The operation on Valentino Rossi is over and everything went OK,” Costa said.
“The fracture was repaired without any complications and Valentino is already awake and smiling.”
Rossi was in surgery for nearly two and a half hours and is likely to stay in hospital for a week.
“The surgeon … has talked of four, five, maybe six months recovery,” Costa said.
“But as ever the diagnosis after the first few days is always important.”
The surgeon who operated on Rossi reportedly said the injury was the worst of its type he had seen and expressed doubt about Rossi’s ability to return to racing in 2010.
Rossi, who is second in the MotoGP riders’ standings, waved as he was moved on to a stretcher before being taken to the track’s medical center for an X-ray that confirmed he had a displaced and exposed fracture of his right tibia.
Although doctors were worried that the broken bone, protruding through the flesh, might have damaged veins, Rossi suffered no other injuries in the crash, Costa said.
Rossi’s father Graziano Rossi said the family wasn’t yet sure how long his recovery would take.
“He was in a lot of pain for 20 minutes, but now he will have all the time necessary to recover. He needs to recover fully before returning. It could be one month, it could be five, it isn’t important. He is in no rush.”
Sunday’s race will be the first time Rossi has not competed in his home grand prix, a race he has won nine times.
It also ends his record run of 230 successive MotoGP races since his debut in the 125cc class at the 1996 Malaysian Grand Prix.
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