In a crash during an IMSA race Jules Gounon has broken two vertebrae in his back and will not be able to drive in the ADAC GT Masters for the time being
Hard news for the Mercedes-AMG Team ZVO: Jules Gounon has broken two vertebrae in his back and will not be available to the racing team in the ADAC GT Masters until further notice. As the Frenchman announced via Instagram on Wednesday, the injury is the result of an accident during the IMSA Championship race at the Virginia International Raceway (VIR) on 28 August 2022.
“Two weeks ago, I went off the track at VIR and bounced pretty hard,” Gounon wrote. “I lost my breath and immediately had back pain. I immediately went to the local hospital where an X-ray was taken but it didn’t show any broken vertebrae.”
But this was a misdiagnosis: “Since then I have had massive back pain on and off. Yesterday we decided to do further tests and an MRI, which revealed two small, sharp fractures on my vertebrae [fourth and fifth thoracic vertebrae], which will unfortunately put me out of action for a few weeks. “
Gounon has been competing for Team ZVO so far in the 2022 German GT Championship season together with Fabian Schiller. After two race wins, the duo is fourth in the drivers’ standings ahead of the final two race weekends of the season, 37 points behind championship leader Raffaele Marciello (Landgraf-Mercedes).
This meant that Gounon and Schiller still had a mathematical chance of winning the title, but due to the retirement, these have now finally been blown for Gounon. The racing team of Philipp Zakowski and Jörg van Ommen has not yet announced who will replace the Frenchman alongside Schiller in the next races at the Sachsenring (24 and 25 September) and possibly also in the season finale at Hockenheim (22 and 23 October).
