Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi has gone back to his middle order practice pace during the first day of action at the Sachsenring and says he has some work to do ahead of qualifying tomorrow in Germany.

Rossi didn’t manage to improve his time in this afternoon’s second session and added his pace isn’t fantastic either after his team tried some setup changes that didn’t work but The Doctor is only half a second off fastest man Marc Marquez.

“This morning we start with a good pace, a good setting and I start quite well, similar to Assen but we have to work quite a lot in the small details. In the afternoon, I wasn’t able to improve my laptime, which isn’t good, but we try something different with the settings which I don’t like a lot,” said Rossi, speaking at the track.

“But I have improved my sectors. I have some riders in front of me that have used the soft tyre again so it is quite positive but my pace is nothing fantastic so we have to improve. I use the aysmmetric tyre for all the afternoon, which is important, and is not so bad. It can be an option for the race.”