Valentino Rossi to treat MotoGP Valencia qualifying as normal

The championship leader had already indicated he was unlikely to sit out Saturday's qualifying session despite the penalty for his clash with Marc Marquez at Sepang meaning whatever grid position he set would be nullified.

Although he could use the qualifying session as additional race practice with longer runs and old tyres, Rossi suggested after Friday practice there was little merit in approaching Q2 as a test and he would go flat-out as usual instead.

"Now we have to decide the strategy," said Rossi

"It will be quite difficult to use the 15 minutes of qualifying like a free practice because all the other riders will be slowing, waiting for another rider [to seek a tow from].

"I think maybe I'll do the normal procedure anyway."

Although Rossi was outpaced by Yamaha team-mate and title rival Jorge Lorenzo in both Friday sessions, he declared himself "relaxed and quite happy" with his day.

"Already this morning my pace was not so bad and I was comfortable with a used tyre," he said.

"That is very important for the race.

"I'm also happy about the afternoon because we tried something different that let me increase my rhythm and improve my laptime."

Pacesetter Lorenzo declared his Friday "perfect".

"In the afternoon we improved the bike so much and were very fast on new tyres, but especially very confident and very fast with old tyres," said the Spaniard, who set a string of laps faster than his rivals on his final run.

Honda rider Marquez had led the way in the morning, but did not run fresh tyres for the main afternoon runs and fell to fifth.

"This afternoon we improved, even though the laptime wasn't better," said Marquez.

"We kept the tyres from the morning and we tried the hard rear tyre.

"We worked well with the bike and I'm happy with the step we made."