Rossi not happy with race pace

The championship leader qualified second at Misano, his home event, having been beaten to pole by Casey Stoner in the final minute.

Rossi was content with his qualifying form, but is concerned that he won't be able to match it in the race.

"We've gone quite well with the qualifying tyres, while with the race tyres we still have a few small problems that unfortunately we haven't been able to solve 100 percent," Rossi told Italia1 television.

"In the last run on race tyres it didn't go badly: I ran into (Nicky) Hayden, but I was doing a good lap. But we need to try to improve tomorrow.

"Now we'll get down to it, we'll work, we'll look at the data, we've tried different settings, so let's hope we'll make another step forward tomorrow and to be closer to Stoner. But I'm happy with starting second."

The Italian explained that he had issues with braking, along with a general distaste for the revised Misano circuit.

"Under braking I struggle a bit in stopping the bike in some corners," said Rossi. "On top of that I don't really like this track much, and I can say that I need some more running to fully understand it.

"In any case, I tried hard in the end: I managed to keep (Jorge) Lorenzo behind me and to start from the front row is fine. We lack a few tenths with the race tyres."