Valentino Rossi could be back on track for the next round in a fortnight at Aragon, but more likely at Motegi three weeks later, missing only two GPs, according to a pledge he made in an interview for the Dorna web-site.
The injured 38-year-old looked pale but determinedly cheerful in the short clip, in which he repeated how he had lost the steering after hitting a rock, put his foot down to avoid crashing, but the weight of the bike had given him a double fracture.
He was on a cross-country ride with friends, “in the hills behind Urbino”, on a route he has been riding for 20 years.
Rossi was shown wearing a surgical stocking on his right leg, but no plaster cast, with his crutches kept well off camera.
“At this point of recovery you must live day by day,” he said. “Aragon will be very, very hard. Last time I came back after 40 days. This time the fracture is better … less painful. But it is very early to say.
“If I am not able to come back for Aragon, I will try for Motegi.”
Practice for Aragon begins 21 days after his crash and surgery that night; for Motegi it is 42 days.
Rossi also said he would have to find “another way” to train, after two off-road injuries this season.
“We are motorcycle riders,” he said; “and the best training is to ride motorcycles, but sometimes this can be dangerous. Unfortunately this year it happened two times to me, so we need to make in another way.”
Petrucci, Rossi, Dutch MotoGP 2017