The 19-year-old 500cc rookie travelled from his European base in Belgium to Italy yesterday and immediately headed for the Mugello circuit where the cast will be cut free by the grand prix medical team headed by Dr Claudio Costa in time for him to ride in tomorrow's opening practice session.

West cracked his wrist, and also suffered back bruising, when he crashed his Dee Cee Racing Honda V-Twin on May 19 at Le Mans during practice for the fourth championship round in France and was forced to miss the race.

"I don't expect any problems with the wrist once the cast comes off because it was only a small crack and there weren't any floating bones or anything like that," said West.

"Dr Costa told me at Le Mans they would probably tape it up to give me more strength which you need because braking on the 500 puts a lot of pressure on your wrists."

West, who finished sixth in the 250cc world championship in 2000 before moving up to the 500cc class this year, said he had been treated by a chiropractor in the past two weeks, in addition to undergoing physiotherapy.

"I landed heavily on my back, and after the bruising went down it was still sore so I went to a chiropractor and he twisted things around and got everything back in the right place," said West.

"It's still sore, but it's no big deal – when you get on the bike you don't feel anything because you're too busy concentrating on racing."

West, who has raced at Mugello twice before in the 250cc class, said he expected his two cylinder Honda would be more competitive than in previous races against the fleet of 15 works V4 Hondas, Yamahas, and Suzukis which have an advantage of about 60-horsepower over his machine. 

"Apart from the main straight, which is quite long, we should be on the pace with the V4s everywhere else if we get a good bike set-up," said West. 

"There is a mix of chicanes and fast, off-camber downhill turns that will suit the 'Twin', so the guys on the four cylinder bikes shouldn't have such an advantage as at some of the other tracks."

West missed the opening round at Suzuka in Japan, but scored world championship points in the following two races for finishing 14th at Welkom in South Africa and 15th at Jerez in Spain.

"My plan this weekend is to try and beat some of the V4s and aim for somewhere around the top 10," he said.

Garry McCoy was also injured at Le Mans and will miss the fifth round at Mugello this weekend.

Honda have won the past eight 500cc races at Mugello. Australia's Michael Doohan had six successive victories at the circuit from 1993 (when the race was known as the San Marino Grand Prix) up to 1998, and Spaniard Alex Criville and Italian Loris Capirossi won at Mugello in the past two years.

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