Ten days after his serious accident at the Malaysian Grand Prix, there is good news: Noah Dettwiler’s health has improved significantly. The 20-year-old can return to Switzerland this week, as the team and family announced in a joint statement.
On Wednesday, a team from the Swiss Air Rescue Rega visited the young Moto3 pilot in the hospital in Kuala Lumpur to plan the details of the medically accompanied repatriation. The flight is scheduled for this Thursday and is expected to arrive in Zurich late Thursday evening.
Dettwiler will then be transferred directly to a Swiss clinic where the remaining leg surgery will be carried out. The rehabilitation phase then begins.
Lüthi: “Noah is making huge progress”
Tom Lüthi, Dettwiler’s close friend and advisor, was relieved in an interview with “SRF”: “I’m super happy. Noah is making huge progress. He recently had another head scan – everything is okay again there.”
Lüthi, who was on site at the accident in Sepang, also commented on the circumstances of the incident on the sighting lap, which is carried out around 20 minutes before the start.
“Over the last few years, the ‘track time’ of the riders has been reduced. This means that the training times have been shortened. In addition, with the exception of the MotoGP class, the warm-up before the race has been canceled,” he explains.
The Swiss sees this as a safety risk, especially for the younger riders in the Moto3 class: “Especially in the Moto3 category, the newcomers have less and less time on the track. They have to deliver immediately without much training. For a MotoGP rider who has been there for a long time, this is less of a problem.”
Lüthi therefore advocates reintroducing the warm-up in the smaller classes, “even if it is only ten minutes.” Many experts expressed similar views.
Rueda was also more seriously affected than expected
The Spaniard Jose Antonio Rueda, newly crowned Moto3 world champion, was also involved in the accident. As has now become known, Rueda also suffered a cardiac arrest and had to receive emergency medical treatment along the route.
His team initially only reported a fractured hand and several bruises. The Spaniard is already back in his homeland and recently underwent surgery.