Marlboro Ducati's Valentino Rossi will start this weekend's MotoGP round at Silverstone with a minor disadvantage over the rest of field in that he has only done 20 laps of the track on a road-going 1198 in cold conditions.

The Doctor turned up to the opening of the new Wing with the express purpose of getting in some laps but then his own Superbike conked out, so he had to borrow a bike from Ducati UK, who are just across the road.

All this means that Rossi will be a session behind as he will have to spend Friday morning learning the circuit while the rest can go in with last year's data - something the Italian doesn't have as this time in 2010 he had a snapped meg.

“Silverstone is a great track that’s difficult and quite fast. I’ll start on Friday with a small handicap because unfortunately, I didn’t get to race there last year. I haven’t ridden a MotoGP bike there, although I did about twenty laps on an 1198 street bike," said Rossi.

"I’ll have to learn the track as quickly and as well as possible, as it’s very technical, with several blind spots where taking the right line is very important. Of course we’ll also have to work on adjusting the bike. Anyway, we’re understanding better and better how to approach the setup of the GP11, and Ducati continues working on development. There’s still work to be done, but it’s clear which areas we have to address and we’re all focused and determined to improve.”