Source: Yamaha Racing.

Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi was able to salvage seventh place in qualifying at Brno’s 11th round of the MotoGP World Championship in the Czech Republic after sustaining a painful finger injury in free practice four.

The nine-time world champion was right on the pace during FP4, setting the fastest lap of the weekend thus far before suffering a crash and injuring his left little finger. Rossi had an X-ray at the Clinica Mobile and was declared fit to continue.

During qualifying he took his time to get out on track, giving the other riders a head start. During his first stint, the Doctors best lap of 1m56.708 saw him move to 10th place before he came in for new tyres with less than seven minutes remaining.

Two minutes later he was back and, despite the pain, set a personal best lap of 1m55.821, shooting him up to the top five before being demoted to seventh in the last laps.

“I was pushing a lot and my pace was fast but unfortunately when entering turn 11 I was a little bit too wide,” Rossi explained. “I was braking hard, trying to enter the corner anyway but I lost the front and damaged my little finger.

“It’s very important for tomorrow that there is no fracture. It seems like there wont be any problem. My finger is not broken, it’s just a little bit damaged. I think and hope that it won’t give me problems during the race.”

Repsol Honda’s defending world champion Marc Marquez claimed the pole position from Ducati pairing Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone.