Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi has said the team still has a lot of work to do in order to give him a race-winning bike and is desperate for more front-end grip and extra stablity under acceleration.

The Doctor qualified seventh for tomorrow's Barcelona race after picking himself up off the floor in free practice three spill that 'felt like a crash in the wet'. Rossi also also used a new engine which utilises a heavier crankshaft for better acceleration one day ahead of schedule and both he and team-mate Nicky Hayden will race it tomorrow.

"The new engine is a help and I am happy. It has more acceleration and you can control the bike with the throttle more so we will continue with the engine tomorrow and I hope for dry weather. This race is critical on tyres especially for the last ten or 12 laps so the target is to keep the pace right through to the second part of the race," said The Doctor.

"I need more experience with this bike it is not difficult to ride it's different to ride from all the other bikes in my career so I need to improve and my team need to understand sooner and better the changes needed to the setting.

"We have a lot of small problems to fix but I speak with Filipo a lot because then the areas we need to change become more clear. It is front-end grip and stability under accleration because the bike always moves too much and Ducati is at work trying to fix it. We have to wait but I hope it's fixed as soon as possible."