Quartararo: Now I am balanced with my arms!

Fabio Quartararo will wait until tomorrow morning to assess his physical condition ahead of the German MotoGP but remains confident of being fully fit despite suffering a partial left shoulder dislocation during FP3.

The Petronas Yamaha rider was holding his left arm at the end of FP3 after sustaining a big 260km/h tank-slapper plunging downhill from the Waterfall corner in the final minute of the session and after medical treatment it was confirmed the MotoGP rookie had endured a partial dislocation of his left shoulder.

The injury did little to hold back Quartararo in both FP4 and qualifying as he bolted to second place in Q2 just behind Sachsenring master Marc Marquez who claimed pole position.

Having come into the German round feeling the effects of right forearm pain from Assen, Quartararo hopes to be fully fit for tomorrow’s race – even joking his two injuries have allowed him to rebalance his body.

“Now I am balanced with the left and the right!” Quartararo smiled. “Now, my arm is not so much a problem as it is almost only left corners [at Sachsenring]. I am looking forward to being 100% and trying to push a little bit more.

“We will see for tomorrow, I don’t know how I will wake up tomorrow morning but I think it will be okay.

“It is less pain than at Assen on my right arm so I am quite confident. It is a long race here but our pace is not so bad and I feel quite smooth on the bike so this is a positive point.”

Explaining his painful FP3 moment, Quartararo held his hands up by trying to take the daunting Waterfall corner at “full gas” which sent him into a slide and subsequent violent tank-slapper.

“With new tyres we tried to push hard but on the fourth lap I tried to make corner 11 on full gas and on the exit I lost the grip,” he said. “It started to shake a lot but at the end the shoulder was quite okay as we managed to get into FP4.

“In the end the main goal was to be in the first two rows and we’ve made the front row and second position so I am really happy about the job.”