Valentino Rossi has stuck a jab into the ribs of his works Yamaha engineers after two average MotoGP results at the Red Bull Ring, saying comparative newboys Suzuki have a better engine.

Yamaha and Suzuki are the only two manufacturers with inline four engines - everyone else uses a V4 - and Rossi says that the extra grip generated by the GSX-RR added to the quicker engine makes it a better package.

“Suzuki has more grip than us in acceleration, but also the engine is clearly faster. I was behind Rins and from one corner to the other he accelerates a lot faster than me," said Rossi, speaking in Austria.

“So, it means Suzuki works in the right way. We hope we can improve. Suzuki in these two weekends was impressive. They work very much, very hard and in a good way. So the problem of the top speed is not the inline four.

We know that in this track we have to suffer because here it’s very important the top speed, and this year the difference in the top speed is huge, very difficult to manage.

“Already last year it was like this, and we push a lot to improve the situation, but also this year the situation is very similar. So here you have a lot of long straights and he have to suffer.

“For me personally, strange races because last week I was able to do P5, but also because we had a lot of crashes in front.

“This weekend everybody fixed the problems and they were able to put on the ground the extra power compared to us and nobody make mistakes and the first Yamaha arrives P9.

“It’s difficult, because more or less the problems are similar as the last years.”