In Europe we’re used to team manager’s and owner’s sugar coating their words (so much so that it brings on diabetes) and very rare cases do they publicly diss their riders, like Fausto Gresini did with Marco Melandri, but it’s usually the riders, who pour their hearts regarding the circumstances of why they switched teams as Randy de Puniet recently did.

So when we reported the rumor of John Hopkins who may heading to the British Superbikes championship next year, little did we know of the true reason why the Anglo-American didn’t have his contract renewed with John Ulrich’s Team Hammer, despite a strong ending to his 2010 season after very serious wrist surgery.

According to Ulrich who posted his opinions on Hopkins on the WERA forum, Hopkins mislead him on his his true physical conditions. While Hopkins in the January press release announcing his racing for the team had stated, “I’m feeling healthier than I have in a long time. I think my fitness level is up there with the way it was in 2007″

Apparently this wasn’t true, and his wrist problems were pre-existent to his signing and that he lacked so much wrist mobility in the first races that he had to put his palm flat on the top of the twist grip and pull his hand back to work the throttle instead of the usual twist of the wrist.

We could say that Ulrich was mislead, especially when someone signs with a new team and doesn’t come up clean about his problems, but we all know by now that riding more or less injured is the mainstay of professional riders. Many overcome their temporary handicaps and can still put on a strong show and podium, even win, as Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner have shown us in the recent past.

Source | asphaltandrubber.com

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