Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi will change his setup focus from the back to the front at Mugello's MotoGP round as the new GP11.1 chassis has cured the rear stability issue but now he needs more temperature in the front tyre.

The Doctor pulled off a fourth-place yesterday at a cold Assen round but was still more than a second a lap slower than winner Ben Spies. He is sure the GP11.1 is good enough for him to start on the second row in future but the nine-time champion is unhappy he is still far from race-winning pace.

"We can see things are positive because we are a lot more optimistic for the next races. This morning we try a different setting that improve a lot my feeling in the rear and in the entry of the fast corners especially in the left I gain 15kph compared to Friday and I ride the bike in a lot better way so from this point of view I'm very happy," said Rossi.

"Unfortunately we arrive always too late with the setting because we needed to work on this bike in a different way as it's a bit more complicated so we need to modify a little bit our way. We have a lot of Ducati people in the garage that know this bike very well and can help us.

"The problem remains we are not competitive for the victory, there is too much gap in the race and in the single lap so we need to work very much. The positive thing is the rear part of the new bike help us to fix a lot of problem but there remains some problem on the front so we have to concentrate on that area for to reduce the gap.

"I am happy about the rear of the bike, we need to improve the grip on the front as we don't put enough temperature on the front tyre and the bike doesn't have enough grip for braking and turning. This is the main problem and the area we have to work as son as possible.

"If I have the right setting on Saturday afternoon, I can start on the second row. I know the bike so I don't need the first three or four laps to understand the grip and we can stay more close."