Monster Yamaha's Bradley Smith reckons the amount of pain his recently-operated-on wrist isn't hampering his lap times at Assen's MotoGP round after setting the tenth-fastest lap this morning and hanging on to Valentino Rossi in the wet second session.

But the Oxfordshire rider will be asking for more painkillers as his current dosage isn't making a dent in discomfort caused by the surgery he had to fix his broken scaphoid bone which he thinks might be due to fluid build up.

"The finger is ok, the wrist is the problem. Once you have had surgery, you still have some problems inside the hands, like a build up of fluid. You have invasive surgery, there is always going to be something wrong. I can't see what it is but I have more pain than I did in Barcelona," said Smith, speaking at Assen.

"I suppose we knew that was possible and the reason why we did this was for Sachsenring and Laguna, so it still needs another two weeks before it is fully better. It hurts always when I brake and in the change of direction through turns six and seven, and 13 to 14.

"It can't be terrible because we were tenth this morning and I was able to follow Rossi this afternoon in the wet, so all things considered, it can't be affecting my riding too much. The painkillers are barely touching it at the moment, so we need to ramp it up. You can get 1000mg at the pharmacy!

"I don't want any painkilling injections as I don't want to cause more damage. We can strap it up and then painkillers. The skin on my finger has taken really well and looks like brand new. They want to take the stitches out after the race."