SOLIHULL’S Liam Delves suffered ligament damage to his shoulder after a nasty crash during the final free practice in round seven of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.
Delves made a great start to the weekend at Cadwell Park before he suffered an unfortunate crash that forced him to withdraw from race three having bravely decided to compete in the first two races.
The 21-year-old rookie rode well during the test day and was in a confident mood on the Rapid Training Rapid CDH Racing Kawasaki Superbike Fuelled by Cheshire Mouldings and Woodturnings Ltd.
However, a crash on lap two of the third free practice session saw him awarded a place on the ninth row of the grid and he opted to race having been seen to by a physio and medical team.
Delves made a good start to race one before his shoulder injury began to take its toll as he finished 23rd.
And he once again took to the track in race two only to pull into the pits with five laps of the 18 remaining as his injury proved too painful to carry on.
Delves said: “In the crash, I pulled the ligaments in my upper shoulder and unfortunately, despite the medical team and multi-function fitness trying everything they could to help me, I just hadn’t got the strength to hold on to the Superbike and reluctantly pulled in to retire from race two.
“Along with my team boss, I made the difficult decision to sit out race three as I just was not fit enough to continue.
“I apologise to my team and sponsors and will now focus on my recovery in an effort to get fit for the next round.”
The next round is at Snetterton in Norfolk over the weekend commencing Friday, September 9.
