MotoGP championshop leader Valentino Rossi says he is in big trouble unless his team can some find some pace from the YZR-M1 in this morning’s warm-up session as The Doctor believes that starting from row three while his faster competition are further up the grid is ;a big problem’.

Rossi upped his game in free practice four, finding some pace on the medium tyre but he couldn’t up it again in the last session. Track temperature will be critical for Rossi as he is nothing like as fast as team-mate Jorge Lorenzo and reigning champion Marc Marquez on the hard rear.

“Yesterday I was very slow and a bit worried, and we didn’t start with a good base setting. Today the situation has improved, especially my pace is not so bad. In FP4 I was in fourth position and I raised my level and my potential a lot and also the life of the tyre is longer, but unfortunately in qualifying I wasn’t strong enough to start from the second row,” said Rossi.

“I hit traffic, made mistakes and I have to start from the third row. This is a big problem because I’m not very fast here and we still have some problems with the bike that we have to improve, we have to make a step for tomorrow. I think fighting for the podium tomorrow will be hard, because Marc and Jorge are very strong, but at this track like at Sachsenring also Dani is very fast, so it will be difficult.”