Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi will once again start from the wrong half of the MotoGP grid at Indianapolis later on today after an early crash in qualifying saw him reduced to his number two bike on which he could only muster a time good enough for 14th place.

The Doctor lost the front a turn two and although his mechanics got the bike back early, it wasn't fixed in time for Rossi to use and the setup on his second bike wasn't the same.

“We took a nice step forward this morning that we hoped to confirm in qualifying, and instead I fell right away. We really could have done without that crash, but the front closed right when I touched the brake. From there, the whole session was difficult because the second bike had a slightly different setup," said Rossi.

"I lost one pair of new tyres and I had to start with a set of used ones. I wasn’t able to get back the feeling from this morning, when the bike felt better and I could push harder. It’s really a shame because we wanted to try to start from the second row again, like at Brno, and instead we’ll have to work hard tomorrow. Anyway, we’ll give our best effort in the race because we weren’t so far off this morning.”