Ducati's Valentino Rossi is happy with his best MotoGP qualifying session of the season so far at Le Mans this afternoon but said he would have been slightly quicker had he not had to pass a slower rider on his fastest lap.

The Doctor ended the session in seventh place and 1.3s off Dani Pedrosa's pace. He is only fractionally slower than Ben Spies one place ahead of him and has Nicky Hayden riding shotgun in 11th.

“I had to pass a rider on my good lap, otherwise I could have been faster, but anyway, I’d say that it’s going pretty well. I’m a bit sorry not to have made the second row, which was pretty close, but the fact remains that this is our best qualifying session of the season and that we were also at the same level in this morning’s dry session," said Rossi.

"This afternoon we did a good job of adapting to the track conditions, which changed quite quickly, and every exit I found myself on the track at the right time. We made another small step forward compared to Estoril, and we worked well. We’ll see what conditions we find tomorrow. If it’s dry we’ll have to try to start well and stay with those in front for as long as possible, and maybe we’ll be able to cut a little more time.”