Hopkins: I ended up scraping my elbow...

Colin Edwards wasn't the only American to make an amazing save during qualifying at Jerez, with Kawasaki's John Hopkins revealing he stabilised his ZX-RR with his elbow during a near miss of his own.

"To be honest, the fastest qualifying lap we did wasn't the best as I lost the front going into one of the long fast right turns, so I know we had the potential to go even quicker," explained Hopkins. "I ended up scraping my elbow but I managed to pick the bike up and get the power down to make a fairly decent lap time.

"The tyre choice for the race is a bit of a gamble, as we've only had a few laps on it due to the lack of testing, but I'm confident that with Bridgestone's help we have made a good decision. The machine set-up feels good and my injury is much better so tomorrow we have to get away from the start well and fight for a good finish."

Team-mate Anthony West was fifteenth fastest.