Injury KO's rookie Tekkyu.

Yoshiteru Konishi's replacement on the Technical Sports Honda suffered a similar injury to his predecessor and will miss this weekend's Suzuka Eight Hours.

Tekkyu Kayo was flown from Japan to replace the sidelined Konishi for last weekend's German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring, but crashed heavily as he was about to begin his first flying lap on Saturday and injured his left hand. Although he sat out the remainder of the session, partly because his bike was too badly damaged to continue, the GP500 rookie still wanted to ride in Sunday's race, only to find that he was neither able to operate the clutch lever or exercise full control over the steering.

His warm-up session lasted just one lap before Kayo returned to the pits in pain, and the team finally convinced him to bow to the results of x-rays that showed one chipped and two cracked bones.

Disappointed enough at having to miss his 500cc grand prix debut, Kayo was then hit with the realisation that the Suzuka marathon was also out of the question. He was scheduled to partner the returning Konishi on the TSR entry, but will now have to wait until the resumption of the All-Japan championships - where he rides a 250 - before returning to action.

''It was a very disappointing result for everyone,'' the 18-year old admitted, ''but I learned a lot from riding the 500 bike for the first time. It was good experience for my career, and I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all who made it happen.''

Team boss Masakazu Fujii denied that TSR had been reckless in promoting a youngster with no prior GP500 experience to ride the bike in Germany, and praised Kayo for his approach to the one-off outing.