After Randy de Puniet’s brilliant ride to a surprise podium in MotoGP’s farewell to Donington Park at the British Grand Prix – where he finished in third place behind Andrea Dovizioso and Colin Edwards – the Frenchman has suffered a setback in a private training accident.
Undertaking a summer fitness programme De Puniet was participating in a motocross session last Saturday afternoon with his personal trainer Yves Demaria (a former motocross rider) in Aix en Provence, when he crashed on entering a corner, hitting his left leg heavily.
The 28 year-old was taken straight to hospital and x-rays showed a fracture of the left ankle. After a quick surgery to insert a screw into his ankle De Puniet left hospital on Monday and will meet Clinica Mobile staff in the next few days to organise his rehabilitation. Hopefully we will be racing in Brno in less than two weeks’ time.
De Puniet stated, “Yves and I have a specific training programme to improve my performance on track this year. This programme has helped me a lot so far and through the summer break I didn’t want to stop training. So we went out to do a short motocross session, but unfortunately I had a fall and the impact on the ground caused a fracture of the left ankle.”
“I am very disappointed about this setback but training is very important for me in order to be in good shape in MotoGP. I will do my best to race in Brno and I am sure that the Clinica Mobile staff will support me in the best way.”

The MotoGP warm-up run at the Grand Prix de France on Sunday morning saw Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo state his intentions with a 1’35.247 best time putting him just ahead of fellow front row starter Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro) on the timesheet.
The Spaniard was around two tenths quicker than the Australian, whilst Lorenzo’s colleague Valentino Rossi was a further tenth back on Lorenzo in third spot. Just behind Rossi were poleman Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and former team-mate Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) in fourth and fifth respectively.
With Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) also on the pace the top six qualifiers all look evenly matched and fans will be hoping to see a close battle at the front in Sunday’s fourth race of the year.
An improved Alex de Angelis (San Carlo Honda Gresini), Marco Melandri (Hayate Racing), James Toseland (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro) rounded out the top ten.

Bradley Smith has taken his first grand prix victory by a mighty 13.524 seconds in Sunday's 125cc Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.

The Englishman, competing in his 50th grand prix but only his third for the Aspar Aprilia team, charged into a confident lead from second on the grid while team-mate and pole sitter Julian Simon battled back from a poor start.

Simon reached second on lap two and began nibbling away at Smith's 1.8sec lead, but the Spaniard suffered a huge accident on lap six - leaving Smith with a near ten second advantage over second position.

The Crash.net columnist kept up a relentless pace thereafter, holding a distant 15 second lead by the halfway stage of the 23 laps. Smith's lead peaked at a staggering 20.270secs, before backing off to claim a crushing 13.5sec victory in the Aspar team's home race.

2009 is Smith's fourth season in grand prix racing. The 18-year-old had finished second on three occasions, from five prior podiums and he celebrated by punching the air with delight and then carrying a union jack around on his slowdown lap as he received a deafening applause from the fan-packed hillsides.

Smith, who began the event just seventh in the championship after finishing fifth and tenth in the first two rounds of the season, is now up to second in the standings, just one point from the lead.

Smith's win was the first by a British rider since Scott Redding's victory in last year's British Grand Prix. Redding also got a strong start to hold an early second behind Smith, but dropped back to fourth at the chequered flag for Blusens Aprilia.

Second place on Sunday went to Smith's Aspar Aprilia team-mate Sergio Gadea, who emerged on top of a frantic six-rider fight for the runner-up spot by just 0.029sec over fellow Spaniard Marc Marquez (KTM).

Rookie Jonas Folger, who began from the back of the grid, crashed out of fourth at the final turn of the penultimate lap.

Folger's team-mate and championship leader Andrea Iannone, winner of the first two rounds, also got a bad start - then crashed on the opening lap while trying to gain places.

The Italian remounted to finish 19th for Ongetta Aprilia, leaving him outside of the points, and he is now just one point in front of Smith.