Petrucci was 'scared' about shoulder, recovering well

Danilo Petrucci is confident he will have no shoulder problems for this weekend's Doha MotoGP after undergoing treatment following last Sunday's opening lap accident.

After qualifying 20th, the Italian's Tech3 KTM debut came to an end after just a few corners when he clipped the back of Alex Marquez's LCR Honda.

"I touched another rider, Alex, but it was not his mistake or my mistake. I mean we were in the middle of the track and trying to find a way," Petrucci explained on Thursday afternoon.

"Unfortunately I was just half a wheel; my front wheel in the same line as his rear wheel and he closed the line but he just changed direction and I was there. I had no chance to react because I immediately crashed on the right side. These are things that can happen when you start so far back."

Petrucci added: "I'm recovering well. Sincerely on Monday and Tuesday I was quite scared about the situation of my shoulder, but fortunately yesterday I was able to see a doctor and we started to have some treatment, some anti-inflammatories, so I'm feeling better.

"I think, crossing the fingers, I will have no problem this weekend, but for sure the shoulder is always complicated because I had an injury in the past and unfortunately every time I crash I feel a lot of pain.

"But I'm really looking forward to start this weekend. I think we have another opportunity to have some track time to improve our set-up. So I'm happy to go on my bike tomorrow and make some progress first of all."

The early race exit means Petrucci still hasn't done more than seven successive laps on an RC16, but the likes of Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira struggled badly with the soft front tyre used by all riders in the race.

Petrucci revealed he was tempted to try the medium and will try and make it work in the cooler temperatures this weekend.

"The front tyre, we can use and be quite fast during the day with the hard, but I wanted to try to go on the medium but the fact is last Sunday the temperature went really, really down.

"I was also scared about the cold wind because from the test the engineers said that even on the main straight we lose quite a lot of pressure with the tyre.

"Last Friday I was in FP2 with the medium front but the temperature was much higher, but we have some things to try [this weekend] to keep the front tyre in temperature, maybe we can find a solution to be more constant in the race."

Otherwise, the #9's plans for this weekend are unchanged.

"We are still looking to have a better set-up because we start with a base from the other riders and then for sure we need to change quite a lot because my weight is a little bit different compared to the other MotoGP riders," he said.

"For this reason it's a matter of time, but unfortunately we didn't have a Valencia test or Jerez or Sepang. So we arrive here, where the track time window is very small and we just had four days of riding compared to other years it's a very small time.

"I knew it would be difficult but I'm not worried about it, I want to focus on myself and improve my feeling on the bike. That's it. Then I'm happy to race here because at least we can see the improvement before going to Portimao that is maybe a better track for us, or Jerez or…"

Petrucci is interrupted by a dividing wall in the press room falling down next to him.

"Our world is crashing down!" he jokes.

Free practice for the Doha MotoGP starts on Friday afternoon.