Valencia MotoGP: Valentino Rossi worried about race pace in finale

The points leader was consigned to the back of the grid anyway by the penalty he incurred for taking Marc Marquez out of last month's Malaysian GP, but was only 12th quickest in qualifying and then crashed on his final lap.

Rossi, whose Yamaha team-mate and title rival Jorge Lorenzo took pole position by nearly half a second, is counting on cooler temperatures on race day to help him find more speed.

"The day was not so bad, especially in the morning I was strong, but in the afternoon I suffered a bit more with the grip and I struggled a little bit more with a higher temperature," he said.

"In qualifying, we didn't have the pressure to try to set the best lap so we tried something else.

"Some modifications I didn't like so I came back in and on my last lap it wasn't so bad, my first sections were quite fast, but unfortunately after that I made a mistake and I crashed.

"But this doesn't make a big difference for tomorrow because I will start last. "We have to improve the grip to improve the race pace.

"If it's cool, lower degrees can change a lot of things about the grip in comparison between a Yamaha and a competing bike.

"Maybe, if the temperature is a little bit less, I can go a bit faster."

He confirmed that he did not sustain any injury in his low-side crash at the end of the session.

"I'm OK, this is the most important thing," he said.

Rossi admitted Lorenzo securing pole position was a blow.

"It will be very hard, the bad news for the race is that Jorge rode to pole position, because we hoped he wouldn't start first," he said.

"But fortunately we don't have to think about that, it's not our problem.

"I just have to recover as much as possible."

If Lorenzo wins the race, Rossi needs to be second to beat him to the championship.