Jorge Lorenzo said he had to overcome "terrible" pain in order to finish third in the United States Grand Prix after his qualifying crash.
The Yamaha rider was racing with a partially dislocated shoulder and broken bones in his right foot as a result of his ferocious high-side at the end of qualifying.
Yet he still recovered from a bad start to take third, less than two seconds behind the victorious Dani Pedrosa, and came close to beating his teammate Valentino Rossi to second.
"Things were so difficult, but with the bad start, plus the physical difficulty, I did the best I could," Lorenzo told the BBC
. "The pain was terrible. In the right hand corners it was a big pain. I couldn't do so much with that hand, so I used the left arm and it got tired. It was terrible."
He said he had been surprised by how fast he had been able to lap considering his condition.
"I didn't imagine I could race today," said Lorenzo in the post-race press conference, "and in this condition doing 1m22.0s, 1m21.8s laps was a very quick pace."
In the final stages Lorenzo not only caught Rossi for second, but managed to dive past him into the final corner. He ran wide, however, and was unable to get close enough to try another move in the remaining laps. Afterwards he admitted that he could have been more patient.
"I tried to pass Valentino, maybe at the wrong point and I should have waited some more corners, but anyway I took my decision," said Lorenzo.