It's fair to say that the Petronas Yamaha SRT squad has been going through quite a difficult 2021 season. Last weekend's race at Sachsenring, Germany, was particularly difficult for Franco Morbidelli who finished the race in second-last place. This weekend, however, he's forced to sit out of the DutchGP after sustaining a knee injury during training.

Morbidelli will be going through a medical assessment to determine the next and fastest step to recovery after the first signs of injury appeared during a seemingly harmless bike swap practice in Le Mans, France. In the process of jumping off from one bike to mount the other, the Petronas Yamaha SRT rider collapsed and had to be carried into the paddock where they suspected some sort of ligament damage.

As for missing this weekend's race in Assen, Netherlands, Morbidelli stated, "I had a moment training at the ranch, I didn't crash, but I needed to put my leg on the ground and as you saw this morning my knee is weak. It started to give me pain from last week. So my knee is not really stable at the moment and when I went to swap bikes and I stomped on my left leg, the knee felt like it wanted to pop out. So I just let go and crashed onto the bike."

Franco Morbidelli is currently 11th in the 2021 MotoGP world championship title chase with 40 points, 71 points behind the current leader, Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP). As for his teammate and mentor, Valentino Rossi, we're expecting to hear some huge news after this weekend's race which also happens to the one-month summer break.