Valentino Rossi has given a brutally honest assessment of what needs to improve before he can challenge for the MotoGP world title in 2020.

The Monster Yamaha man only accrued one lap and four corners' worth of data on Sunday at Misano but felt like he was less competitive than the week before, and the old problems were again raising their ugly heads.

"So, we tried some different things and looks like I was not so bad, but on Sunday already from the morning I suffered a little bit more, especially with sliding and degradation of the rear," said Rossi, speaking at the track.

“Trying to improve the grip in acceleration, the rear grip in acceleration because it’s not our strong point. Unfortunately, in the race just one and a half laps, so I don’t know exactly my potential. But last week I felt more competitive."

Rossi fell to 26 points, or just over a race win, behind series leader Andrea Dovizioso, so his tenth title is not written off just yet.

“I lost some points, but doesn’t change a lot. There are a lot of riders in a small difference of points and the championship is still open and long.

So, anything can happen. But we need to be stronger, to go faster, and this weekend we tried something to improve. But at the end in the race I don’t feel very well with the bike, I don’t have a lot of grip.

“I don’t know because I crashed after one and half laps unfortunately, because I did a mistake in turn four.

“But I was not very competitive, not competitive enough to fight for the championship. We need to be faster.

"On the bright side, we have another race in Barcelona. That is a very good track, I like it a lot. The asphalt and grip level will be very different there. We hope that we will be competitive again."