Dani Pedrosa wasn't even sure if it was worth racing in his home Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.
It was a good job he did, since he finished in second place and is now also second in the world championship standings.
The reason for the uncertainty over the Repsol Honda rider's attendance was his long-suffering collarbone injury, which causes left-arm numbness and hadn't been cured by healing time over the winter.
After struggling with the arm on his way to third at round one in Qatar, Pedrosa underwent further medical tests that suggested removing the metal plate inserted into the collarbone after last October's practice crash a Motegi.
That operation is due to take place today (Monday).
Pedrosa had qualified second in the dry qualifying session at Jerez, but plummeted back to eleventh during the first lap of the wet race.
"At the start, many riders overtook me and I thought 'that's it'. Anyway, I knew there were 27 laps and the situation was difficult for the tyres,” said Pedrosa.
“I was a little nervous after my bad start, but when I realised that in the first lap I was faster than in the warm up, I calmed down and started to improve.
“I took a good pace and had to ride at maximum concentration in order not to not make any mistakes, it was very easy to crash. Some riders started falling down and it was a matter of resisting there.”
Pedrosa's progress was helped by accidents for
Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner, then race leader Marco Simoncelli - the Gresini Honda rider's exit, on lap 12 of 27, putting Pedrosa into second behind Yamaha's world champion Jorge Lorenzo.
Pedrosa was initially 2.7sec behind the #1, but shrunk that gap to just 1.2sec within three laps.
That was as close as he got to victory as Pedrosa, like most riders, struggled more as the track started to dry, the grippier tarmac playing havoc with the soft rain tyres used by the entire grid.
“I tried to catch Lorenzo when I saw that his gap was about a second, but at 10 laps to go the tyres were almost finished; I couldn't even open the throttle on the straight because the track was very slippery,” revealed Pedrosa.