Red Bull KTM Factory rider Jeffrey Herlings will come out tomorrow and find out if he can actually race the qualification races, or even the main program on Saturday. We caught up with the Dutchman and asked him about his chances of racing.
Jeffrey, just before you had your accident in Italy, you made a really nice pass and it didn’t look like you were in any danger of crashing. What happened?
Seriously, I don’t know what happened. I had had a perfect winter. No injuries and I felt really good. Just before the Italian champion one muscle or tendon got overload and the doctor told me to take some time off. I missed the first two rounds of the Italian championship. We came back for the last one, and just wanted go for the win. I was fastest in the first practice. I had a bad start and was back in seventh or something. Came back to third in half a lap and went over a jump, went to sit down and the bike just high-sided me. If it was me or the bike, doesn’t matter, I went down. I should have stayed a bit calmer. We were lucky we had a good base for the bike, so I am super happy with the bike and KTM have provided me with some good things.
How about Qatar?
Qatar is going to be tough. I broke my hand 10 days ago, so to come here it’s going to be difficult, probably a lot of pain.
Going back to that pass in Italy. You looked fast. How did that feel?
I felt good, just before the crash I passed two guys in like 50 metres and was on it. It’s so weird, I felt so good, maybe I was too over excited, and it’s a shame.
What about time to be 100%? You have said it takes six weeks, other riders have said it takes six weeks. You got any idea how it’s going to feel?
What I do know is we don’t have six weeks. It got plated, with six screws in there. One thing is, I am not going to be pain free. I am going to have a lot of pain. To keep my championship dreams alive, I am going to go out tomorrow and try and practice. I have shown many times when things seem unreal, I have been able to make them happen. I will go out, but I don’t want to take any risk. If it’s too painful we keep the bike in the garage and go home.
How will this track be with such an injury?
You have some seriously big jumps and a lot of g-forces in your hand. The big jump is like 10 meters high, and if you case it or over jumps it, or whatever, that’s going to hurt a lot. I will die from the pain probably. But I prefer racing with a broken hand than with a broken femur. It’s the first round and with the femur it was the last round. We just go out and do our best.
