Marco Bezzecchi admitted his knee injury is "driving me crazy", despite returning from the summer break with the fastest MotoGP lap ever at Silverstone.
The former MotoGP championship leader impressed on Friday, topping practice with a new lap record at Silverstone. However, the Aprilia factory rider explained he is still far from fully recovered after suffering two "complicated" injuries at Sachsenring last month.
Despite that, the defending British MotoGP winner managed to go 0.3 seconds faster than Trackhouse Aprilia's Raul Fernandez, 0.4s ahead of the best Ducati of Fabio Di Giannantonio, and half a second clear of teammate and championship leader Jorge Martin.
"The day was fantastic. Obviously, I'm very happy to make a good lap time. But let's say the balance of the day is a little bit different than this," Bezzecchi warned.
He added: "Because in terms of race pace, I struggled a bit. When I had to do four, five laps in a row I struggled and at the end of the session I was very tired."
"Both injuries are heavy. The shoulder is the collarbone, it's true, but the fracture was very bad. So the surgery was also complicated."
"The knee is a very deep wound. In Germany they closed it so I could fly, but I had to open it again. And when they opened it, they saw that I also had a bone scrape. So the knee surgery was also complicated."
Indeed, while the collarbone injury made headlines, Bezzecchi revealed that it is his knee that is "driving me crazy".
"The knee looks like a smaller injury, but in the end it's the one that drives me crazy. The days at home were a disaster. So I'm pushing a bit, especially on direction changes. I can't bend the whole leg, so I'm struggling. And this track has a lot of direction changes!"
He added: "The pain is still there, because it's like a fracture. I lost a small piece of bone. But it's also very swollen, full of fluid."
In such conditions, the Italian admitted that topping the timesheet was a big boost.
"Speed always helps. It's a good satisfaction to make this lap time, even if it's Friday and it doesn't mean anything," he said. "At least for one day I have the track record. Hopefully it lasts for tomorrow."
"But for sure it's much better to be fast than slow. As I said, tomorrow will be very tough, but we'll think about that tomorrow!"
Bezzecchi, who scored only 13 points in the four rounds before the summer break, will start Saturday's Sprint from third in the world standings, 22 points behind Martin. Martin completed a strong Friday for Aprilia, with four RS-GPs in the top five.
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