Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro fought through Q1 to qualify fourth at Mugello ahead of the ItalianGP despite recovering from recent arm-pump surgery.

Overcoming ongoing issues with his recovery, the Spaniard also faced technical difficulties during the morning’s opening practice, forcing him to fight for a place in the pole shootout from the afternoon’s first 15-minutes.

“A very difficult day today,” Espargaro explained from the Mugello paddock “as this morning we had a small technical problem when I put the new soft rear tyre, so we were forced to go through Q1 which is certainly not ideal for the situation with my arm.

“Then after the accident of Dupasquier in FP4, sincerely I was not very motivated to go out on track - I am a father and certain things strike me particularly hard. I had also a lot of problems during FP4 so everything was against us, but I was very focused on the Q1.

“I managed to do a very fast lap time to go through to Q2 and then also in Q2 I managed three laps in the low 46’s, which makes me very, very, very happy and very proud of these lap-times, because it’s very fast, here in Mugello.

“Overall, has been a positive day for us, but a very difficult day for the big crash of Dupasquier so hopefully he will be okay. Everybody’s praying in this paddock for him.

“It will be a difficult race tomorrow. I’ll most probably have to grit my teeth and we’ll have to manage rear tyre wear but I won’t rule out any result.”