Jonas Folger out of Sunday races at Assen after high-speed WorldSBK crash

Jonas Folger will take no further part in Round 5 of the 2021 WorldSBK Championship at Assen following his high-speed crash out of the opening race of the weekend on Saturday.

The ex-MotoGP rider fell on the penultimate lap at the fast Turn 6/7 kink after losing the front-end into a wobble before his MGM Bonovo BMW M 1000 RR  hit the deck quickly and spiralled into the gravel trap, impacting Folger as it came down.

With the first race red flagged to allow medical teams to tend to Folger, the German was taken to hospital for further checks but was found to have suffered no broken bones and no internal bleeding, even if he was battered and bruised in the tumble.

As such, Folger won’t compete in Sunday’s two races, bringing a bitterly disappointing end to a weekend that had promised much for the former Tech 3 Yamaha MotoGP man.

"Unfortunately, he fell violently on the head," said Bonovo team boss Michael Galinski on Saturday evening. “Nonetheless, Jonas hopes that he can drive on Sunday. But that won't be decided until the morning. All in all, it was a great race for him, unfortunately the front wheel fell away. 

With the opening four events delivering just a single top ten and points’ scoring result with a run to eighth in Estoril, Folger was on course for a significant season’s best at Assen having qualified sixth and been on course for a seventh place finish.

Folger was one of five riders to crash out of the opening race of the weekend in an error-strewn encounter that also cost Alex Lowes, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, Kohta Nozane, Lucas Mahias and Alvaro Bautista strong results.