Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber has broken his leg in a road accident while taking part in his own multi-sport charity event in Tasmania.
The 32-year-old Australian collided head-on with a 4x4 vehicle while riding a mountain bike along a road near the historic convict town of Port Arthur.
The accident happened at 12.40pm local time on Saturday.
Webber was airlifted by helicopter to hospital where he underwent surgery on a broken right leg.
“The surgery is complete, a pin inserted and the recovery begins,” the event’s director, Geoff Donohue, was quoted as saying by the BBC.
“Mark’s in good spirits. The broken leg is the injury, and beyond that, he’s in really good shape.
“He has a little bit of a graze on his left forearm, but he has had full scans and everything else is clear.
“He’ll be in hospital for at least three days, for sure under a week.
“I was speaking to him before the operation, and he was already thinking about his rehabilitation.”
Webber's full rehabilitation is likely to take several months and rule him out of much, if not all, of winter testing.
But Donohue added: "I suspect that as soon as Mark is able to fly, they will be keen to get him back to Europe.
"They will have people working out his rehab programme now with a view to getting him up and going as soon as possible."
Webber was tackling the penultimate day of the Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge – a five-day, 170-mile endurance event involving mountain bike riding, kayaking and trekking that is now in its fourth year – when the accident happened.
Sergeant Jon Ford of Tasmania police told the Australian Associated Press that the male driver of the Nissan X-Trail that hit Webber was uninjured.