Valentino Rossi was quick to welcome Andrea Dovizioso into the Petronas fold on Sunday evening after Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis confirmed the Italian’s future in the Iwata family.

Dovizioso is expected to make his debut with the Sepang Racing Team at Misano in just over a fortnight’s time, with Rossi’s former teammate, and VR46 Academy mentor, Franky Morbidelli, moving into Monster Energy factory colours on his return from injury.

“I am happy to have Dovi because he have a lot of experience, is very fast, and especially because we have a good relationship,” Rossi said from Silverstone.

“We always fight together, from 2008, and I’m very happy that he come back. I think that also, he can give something to Yamaha for improve the bike and I’m happy that we will be teammates.”

Suffered a bitterly disappointing end to a promising weekend, Rossi completed the BritishGP at the back of the field, due to tyre woes that the nine-time world champion described as both unexpected and burnt out.

Having shown impressive pace throughout his UK visit, and started the 20-lap race by running in the top-six, Rossi dropped dramatically in the second half of the contest. Falling from ninth to 19th in the final 10 laps and crossing the line 30-seconds behind fellow Yamaha, and victor, Fabio Quartararo.

“I was quite strong during all the weekend, and I feel good,” he said of his early performance. “I feel good with the bike and I had a decent pace. We know that starting with the medium, for us, is a bit more difficult because I was better with the hard but today was very cold, so we need to go with the medium.

“So I expected that we can have some more problem but not like this. I start well and also in the first laps I was in the group, this is important. I was more or less in the place where I expect, where I can fight with my pace around the seven/eight/ninth place, I think. But after five/six laps the rear tyre drop incredibly - on the right I don’t have any more grip - is like that the tyre burn - and after, the rubber lose a lot of performance. I started to lose one, two, three, seconds per lap and I try to arrive at the end but I was very, very slow.

“Is a great shame, I’m very sad because I want to try to make a good result here, because I like the track, have a good atmosphere with a lot of fans around the track, and especially because I feel good with the bike. This track has very fast, technical points and during the weekend I was always competitive, and I wanted to try to arrive in the top-10 but is like this.

“Unfortunately today is not possible to use the hard because don’t have enough temperature to make the rubber work. I know that with the medium is a bit more difficult for us because yesterday I was faster with the hard but there is no choice, you have to race with the medium because, today was very cold.

“Our bike is very friendly with the rider, usually. Is a good bike, have a good handling, have a good agility but we suffer with the engine. The engine is our weak point, in the straight, we lose a bit compared to the top, but looks like Yamaha is very, very competitive, especially with Quartararo.”

And how did he rate his team-mate for the weekend, Jake Dixon’s time with the Petronas squad?

“I think that he make a good job, because yesterday make 2’00.8, and this is already a good lap time. Is always good, if he’s good on the bike, he already ride well so I think that is a positive weekend for him. For sure to ride the M1 is great, is a dream for a rider, for a Moto2 rider and I think that he use this chance in a positive way.”