WSBK Racer Maxime Berger Losing His Rear Wheel at Donington Park

We’re still in awe of a bizarre incident from the past weekend’s World Superbike Race at England’s Donington Park. If you haven’t heard what happened yet, check the video after the jump or read about it in our race report. We’ve seen crashes before where a rider lost control of his rear wheel, but not like this.

As he rounded the final turn on his sixth lap of Race One, the rear wheel of Team Supersonic racer Maxime Berger’s Ducati 1198 suddenly flew off while the Berger and the rest of the bike continued through the turn. Thankfully, the incident happened at perhaps the slowest section of the track and Berger was able to escape unharmed.

“The ring broke and I was lucky because he broke into a slow corner,” says Berger. “I found myself on the ground without knowing what happened.”

As we can see from the picture below, the spokes had sheared right off the hub. The team’s webpage says the Superbike uses Marchesini forged magnesium wheels but the orange label on the wheel identifies it as an Oz Racing wheel.

Check out the analysis of the crash from Eurosport’s studio panel of Tony Carter, Carl Fogarty, Neil Hodgson and James Haydon after the jump.

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By Dennis Chung