Laverty unharmed in fiery crash at Imola

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Eugene Laverty says he is feeling okay and been given the all clear by the World Superbike medical team after his scary fall which caused the red flag stoppage of race one at Imola.

On lap 13 Milwaukee Aprilia's Laverty and Alex Lowes on the Pata Yamaha collided in the run down to the Rivazza double left-hander which broke the brake lines on Laverty's bike.

Travelling at approximately 160mph Laverty made an instant decision to jump off his RSV4 which slammed into the crash barriers and caught fire but the Northern Irish rider avoided serious injury in his tumble through the gravel trap.

Laverty was immediately taken to the medical centre at Imola but having avoided injury he was allowed to leave and is expected to be given the all-clear to ride in Sunday's race two.

Laverty has confirmed he's okay aside from a few bumps and knocks rolling through the gravel trap at high speed but was plainly disappointed to miss out in the race.

"I'm okay, when I got off the bike I tumbled a little bit but my body is okay," Laverty said. "Out of the right-hand kink before Rivazza Alex came up the inside of me and took the line away. I tried to brake but he was running a little bit wide which is something you shouldn't really be doing there. I had nowhere to go.

"It hooked my brake lines and pulled the brakes off so I had no brakes. I tried to pump them a few times but I had to get out of there.

"It isn't pretty tumbling through the gravel trap there towards the wall so I was lucky to get away with it."

The incident was investigated by race direction but neither rider was penalised for the collision. The red flag saw Chaz Davies claim victory on the countback to the end of lap 12 with Jonathan Rea second and Marco Melandri third.

WHOA!!

Laverty's bike goes up in flames as he suffers a nasty crash #ItalianWorldSBK pic.twitter.com/25swbArw6c-- Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) May 13, 2017