Britain's Craig Jones will take to the grid in this afternoon's world supersport race riding with a broken hand.
The Parkalgar Honda man crashed in yesterday's morning practice session when his rear tyre went off track and lost traction. He immediately knew he had broken his hand and was so sure he borrowed a phone from a marshal and called his girlfriend Karen to tell her. The doctor found he had broken the fifth metatarsal near his wrist. The mobile clinic injected and bandaged it so he could ride in afternoon qualifying.
He said: "“The mobile clinic patched me up pretty well but even then I had to really bite the screen and give it all I could to put in a fast lap – it was extremely painful. It is my clutch hand which is a small mercy because if it had been my throttle hand it would have been much worse.
“My Parkalgar Honda has been brilliant this weekend and its high top speed certainly helped me make a good lap. Thank you to my team for the bike and also for fixing my number one CBR600 between sessions so I could use my quickest machine in qualifying. With such a quick bike I think I’ll make up places tomorrow in the race; realistically, the top 10 would be good but I’ll be trying for higher and top five if possible.”