Jerez MotoGP: Valentino Rossi troubled by poor Friday practice pace

Sticking with the hardest compound Bridgestone available while others went softer paid dividends for Rossi in the preceding race in Argentina, where he stormed through the field to catch leader Marc Marquez.

But Rossi could not get the hard Bridgestone to perform well enough in Jerez practice, lapping a second off his pacesetting Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.

"It was a difficult practice, especially this afternoon," Rossi said.

"I think I could have got a better position but I decided to use just the harder option and work with just that tyre, because we thought that was the best tyre for the race.

"Unfortunately the performance is very low and the laptime isn't good enough, so I think that also the soft can be an option too, but it will be difficult."

He said he was having trouble trying to find a balance that suited him in general.

"With the high temperature in the afternoon the track makes you slide a lot and it's very difficult to control the bike," Rossi said.

"We had a lot of troubles in acceleration, because we suffer from wheelspin and the bike isn't stable.

"We are not good with the setting yet, so we have to try and improve for tomorrow morning.

"We have a lot of things to do; a different balance of the bike, different tyres and other options."

Lorenzo also tried and rejected the hard tyre, but was content enough on the softer option as he led both sessions.

"My mentality from this morning was to go for it and don't think too much, just try to ride according to my instinct and it worked very well, especially in the morning," he said.

"In the afternoon we tried the hard rear tyre that was very bad, with lots of spinning for everyone, and I decided to go back to the softer one, since that one is much better in cold but also in warmer conditions."