Rossi still "not at 100 percent" after 2017 leg break

Yamaha MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi says he is still "not at 100 percent” after breaking his leg in a training crash last year.

Yamaha YZR-M1 of Valentino Rossi, Yamaha Factory Racing

The Italian suffered fractures of the tibia and fibula in his right leg in a motocross crash on August 31, and was forced to miss his home MotoGP race in Misano – before returning well ahead of schedule to compete at Aragon.

He saw out the campaign as normal from that point on but, even after the off-season, believes he is still not back to full fitness.

“The leg is very good, I was able to go with the snowboard, ski a bit but I am not at 100 percent,” Rossi said at Yamaha's 2018 season launch event in Madrid.

“I still feel pain and I have to modify a bit my training because I cannot run, still.

“In the last two weeks I started to run a little bit but still after one or two minutes I have to slow down because I have pain.

“Usually you need six months to recover the strength of the tibia and so I think that I have another one month and a half to restart to run but for the rest I am okay, for the bike I am okay.”

Rossi's fractures were fixed in place with metal pins in the initial surgery, and he doesn't plan to have them removed until the end of the upcoming campaign.

“The problem to take out the pins is at the end of the season because you have to keep the pin for minimum one year," he added.

“I think that this year I will race like this and I will do the surgery after the season.

“But it is not a big problem because you don't feel nothing. You know it is there, but no difference.”

Injury aside, Rossi – who turns 39 in February – says his physical condition has remained on about the same level over the past few years.

“I want to say every year is more difficult because I am not very young - but in reality in the last six-seven years I feel very similar,” he said.

“Different compared to when I was 20 or 25 because [it was] easier to recover especially. So [now it's a] longer recovery time but in reality in the last five, six years I feel very similar in the physical condition.

“You have to work hard but I think that in our sport it is not the most important thing. You have to be fit, for sure, but you have also something else, so I think that in the last years more or less the level is the same.”