Bruised Bautista aiming to race at Brno

The 25-year-old Spaniard was taken to hospital following fears that he may have fractured his T1 vertebrae after crashing his Suzuki at Turn 3, but subsequent scans revealed no such injuries.

"Fortunately there is nothing broken, so this is the most important thing and tomorrow I will try and do the race," said Bautista, who sat out qualifying but will take part in the morning warm-up on Sunday. "The crash was because as I entered turn three I lost rear grip and I couldn't do anything about it.

"I did a big jump in the air and I could do nothing to save it. Tomorrow morning I hope I feel much better and I will try to race because I need to do as many kilometres as I can."

Suzuki team manager Paul Denning said: "The best news from the qualifying session didn't even come from the track, it was the report back from the hospital that Alvaro's CT scan had shown no broken or damaged vertebrae and apart from severe bruising he's fine and will attempt to race tomorrow.

"After the bad luck he's had with injuries this year it's nice to have the roll-of-the-dice for once and that he won't be forced to miss the next few races is a big boost.

Bautista's team-mate Loris Capirossi starts the race from tenth on the grid.