Elías rides through pain barrier to tenth

Having had surgery to relieve ‘arm-pump’ symptoms in his right forearm on the day after the Jerez race, just two weeks ago, Toni Elías performed bravely at the Grand Prix de France over the weekend to eventually bring his Honda RC212V home in tenth place.

The Spanish rider overcame his team-mate Alex de Angelis in an exciting head-to-head battle for the top ten at Le Mans, despite fighting against the pain with thirty stitches in his forearm.

Elías will now hope that with the surgery now out of the way he can begin to improve results having made a slow start to the season on his return to the Honda Gresini team.

Reviewing round four he commented, “I’m sure that was a fun race for the fans to watch with the pit stops and bike changes but it was a tough one for us. I got a good start in the wet but I didn’t feel too comfortable in those conditions so I was lucky that it dried out. We did a good job changing bikes and I think I was one of the fastest, if not the fastest, to change. It took us a while to get the slick tyre up to temperature and the first four or five laps were really tricky but then I got into my rhythm, even though I was struggling a lot with the lack of power in my arm.”

The man from Barcelona continued, “I had to fight really hard to hold off the challenge of De Angelis and Nicky Hayden – I thought they might get the better of me but in the end they didn’t. In my current physical state I couldn’t have hoped for a much better result than this but we have to kick on and improve from here. In Mugello I’ll be much better and in the right shape for what we hope will be a turning point for us.”