McWilliams to wait on race decision

The Ulsterman lost control of his Ilmor near the end of his final qualifying lap, being pitched off the bike and into the gravel trap.

Although he was able to walk on the leg after the crash, a precautionary X-ray in Qatar shortly afterwards showed that he had impacted on the femur that is still mending from his accident in Jerez last November.

"You can see it has pulled out a bit," he told autosport.com about his leg injury. "The pin is still there but the main thing is that it will slow up the recovery a bit more because it was going quite well.

"It is one of the things. I have opened up the break a little bit and we will see what it is like in the morning. At the moment it is a pain I could do without. It is a disaster."

McWilliams said that the accident was caused when his rear tyre let go - having already been used for the previous lap that he had aborted early on.

"It was going from five or six turns before, but because it was a two-lap tyre I tried to push it on. In the end it just reversed itself in.

"It was my fault because I missed the first lap, but what I did was try and save the tyre for the next lap. I had made a mistake out of turn one and got on the kerb, so tried to save the tyre and then went for it, but by that stage it was gone."