Happy de Puniet admits fitness concerns

The Frenchman sustained the injury when he fell early in the Italian Grand Prix, and it worsened during the build-up to the Barcelona race.

His running has been limited by the discomfort in his knee this weekend, but he still managed to take second place in both final practice and qualifying.

"We improved the bike a lot yesterday, it worked well and I'm happy," de Puniet told BBC television.

"But I have a big pain in my knee. I'll try to do something tonight. For sure, the race will be difficult, but today is a good day for me."

Kawasaki team manager Michael Bartholomy said it was clear that riding the bike was exacerbating the injury, and de Puniet sat out some of the early part of qualifying to conserve his strength for the end of the session.

"Randy has still a big problem with his knee from the crash in Mugello and in the last free practice we saw that when he was on the bike it was becoming worse and worse, so we tried to save the time on the bike to make it a little bit more easy for qualifying," Bartholomy told the official MotoGP website.

The physical challenge could be even greater than usual in Catalunya this year due to the extremely hot temperatures, with qualifying taking place under an air temperature of 33 degrees centigrade.