Valentino Rossi's team are as non-plussed over the Italian's lack of dry-weather pace as the rider himself and even the tricks learned from 30 years' experience held by the likes of crew chief Jerry Burgess can't come up with any answers.

This was The Doctor's verdict this afternoon after he qualified as the last prototype for tomorrow's MotoGP grid at Jerez down in 13th place and some 3.4s per lap slower than old enemy Jorge Lorenzo, who took pole.

Rossi has examined team-mate Nicky Hayden's data and concluded the Kentuckian is able to deliver the corner-entry speed Rossi needs but their riding styles are so different, he will not be able to emulate the 2006 world champion, who starts from the front row.

"The problem for my team is exactly the same as me. I ride a lot of different bikes and I know what I have to do for go faster but unfortunately it doesn't work with the Ducati and my team is in exactly the same situation. They work for 30 years with different bikes and all the trick that they know for improve the setting for go faster, for try to win the race doesn't work with this bike, so more or less we are in the same boat," said Rossi, speaking to bikesportnews.com this evening.

"Nicky did a great practice on the first row and he is able to ride the bike in a better way than me, especially to put the bike into the corner a lot faster and reach the maximum lean earlier than me so can bring more speed into the corner. For this reason we need to work for try to fix the problem and understand Nicky, who has a setting quite different than us.

"I ride a lot of different bikes and have modified my style but in the end not very much. My style was OK for the other bikes that I ride but with this one, it create more problem. Nicky ride very different compared to me but for me to do like this is very difficult. All things that I do with this bike don't work so we are very far from the right mental condition."