Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi has expressed concern about Bridgestone’s exit as MotoGP’s control tyre supplier in 2016, saying he believes that laptimes will drop as a result of a switch to a different manufacturer.

The Doctor said that when he changed from Michelin to Bridgestone in 2007, he saw a massive leap in performance and thinks it will now take a backward step. Team-mate Jorge Lorenzo had a bit of a dig at the firm, saying that he would like the successors to listen to the riders.

“I am a little bit worried because the last time I used a MotoGP bike without a Bridgestone tyre was in 2007 and when I switch to use the Bridgestone it was a huge step, was a big difference. So for this reason I think that for other manufacturers it will be difficult to arrive to the same level,” said Rossi, speaking at Jerez.

“Is difficult to have the same tyre that works well on different bikes. Usually, if one tyre has some advantage for one bike, it has disadvantage for another bike so maybe under this point of view we can make better but I think the laptime we see now and the rhythm in the race with some other tyres will be more hard.”

Team-mate Jorge Lorenzo said: “When Bridgestone stop, we will have to race with another factory. For me I would like for this factory to hear a lot the riders and the will to make the tyres that we want.”