West riding in pain at Mugello.

Australia's Ant West battled through pain from an injured left wrist and problems with his Dee Cee Racing Honda V-Twin yesterday to eventually qualify 18th for tomorrow's 500cc Italian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Mugello.

The 19-year-old 500cc rookie took a tablet to ease the pain in his wrist before today's second and final qualifying session, and clocked a best lap time of 1min 57.119-secs around the 5.2km circuit. He will start the fifth round of the 500cc world championship on the fifth row of the grid.

West, who finished sixth in the 250cc world championship in 2000, cracked his wrist on May 19 during practice for the previous round at Le Mans in France. A plaster cast on the wrist was removed on Thursday and he is riding with tight strapping.

In yesterday's opening practice and qualifying sessions he was restricted to only 23 laps because of problems with his NSR500V. He recorded a best qualifying lap of 2-mins 1.275-secs in qualifying yesterday. Today he was able to complete 22 laps in practice and a further 20 laps in qualifying.

West set his best time in qualifying today on his 18th lap of the session. The time was an improvement of 4.156-secs on his quickest lap in the first qualifying session. He was second fastest qualifier among riders on V-Twin motorcycles, behind Japan's Haruchika Aoki, who secured 17th grid position on a Molenaar Racing Honda.

"The wrist is pretty painful - not so much the fracture, but the muscles in my wrist," explained West. "I had some bruising, and when I have to pull to the bars to change direction on all the fast chicanes here I can feel it quite a lot.

"It's been hard because the more I use my wrist the more it hurts. Until now I haven't used any painkillers, but I did have a pill before the final session. The race should be okay. The straight is pretty long, and the 'Twin' loses on the four-cylinder bikes there. But everywhere else I can stay with them. Hopefully I can race with them tomorrow."