Rossi's red-hot ride after the fall

Italian champion seizes pole after a word with his doctor

Valentino Rossi, the 23-year-old Italian who is comfortably leading the world motorcycle championship, yesterday rode the final qualifying session of the British Grand Prix at Donington Park with the discomfort of a broken thumb. He still managed to take pole, his seventh from eight races this season.

After a spectacular fall on Friday it seemed that he would be unlikely to be fit enough to race in today's grand prix. In hospital it was discovered that he had cracked his right thumb and had also suffered concussion and a bruised hip.

However, yesterday doctors passed him fit to ride and within 10 minutes of the afternoon session he had won a place on the front row of the grid. Finally he took pole with a record-breaking last lap of 1min 31.563sec after a change to soft-compound tyres on his enormously impressive four-stroke Honda.

He admitted afterwards: "I still have a headache but it's not too bad when I'm on the bike. I have to thank the doctor and my physiotherapist. I had to take something for the pain but I'm quite good now.''

Quite good, in the motorcycling rather than medical sense, is a considerable under-statement. Rossi is now ranking among the all-time greats of the sport. Even so, yesterday the top six riders were separated by only 3/10ths of a second. The front row of today's grid will comprise Rossi, Carlos Checa (Spain/ Yamaha), Tetsuya Harada (Japan/Honda) and Alex Barros (Brazil/Honda), who on Friday had himself broken the lap record.

Britain's hope, Jeremy McWilliams (Proton) had at one stage yesterday taken a front-row position but he slipped to seventh place, which was not surprising in view of the lightning pace.

Rossi returned from hospital willing to go straight into yesterday morning's free practice, which he could have avoided. Despite a cautious approach, he was still fifth fastest and proved he would be serious in the afternoon.

While he had been in the Nottingham casualty department, Barros had taken provisional pole position. Yesterday, though, the sun blazed down and Rossi warmed to the fresh challenge.

His youthful talent (he was previously 125cc and 250cc world champion) and the power of the V5 990cc Honda have become an almost unchallengeable combination. Indeed, his only defeat this season came nearly three months ago, and then at the hands of his team-mate Tohru Ukawa by a split second after Rossi's machine had been fitted with the wrong tyres. Ukawa misses today's race after an almighty crash on the Craner Curves on Friday.

The Honda has extraordinary acceleration but, accord-ing to Rossi, still needs some development in the area of handling, which at Donington, with its tight bends through the slow sections, can be crucial. Rossi crashed in practice on the circuit last year as well, but on the other hand he also won the grand prix from the third row.

He finds the track "difficult'' yet, when fully fit before his accident on Friday and when less so yesterday, he convincingly defied that difficulty. "It's often hard to over- take here,'' he said. "Which is why I was so pleased to win last time."

His spectacular riding and equally eye-catching victory laps – he has picked up fans along the way to ride side-saddle and arranged for mates to dress as policemen and "book'' him for speeding – have turned him into a huge star in Italy, which is why for the past year he has lived in London, where, apart from visits to Italian restaurants, he can melt into the crowd.

His crushing lead in the overall standings – he has 170 points, while Ukawa has 108 with Checa a distant third on 72 – has not been entirely welcomed by those fond of tighter competition. Rossi himself has said: "I like a challenge. I like real racing. But it's not my fault if the bike is better than anything else.''

The four-stroke machines may not be quite as efficient in their braking as the lighter two-strokes, but they are much quicker coming out of slow corners. For Rossi, the idea of a slow corner never seems to enter his thinking.