Rossi believes race will be better

The Yamaha rider will start sixth in the Czech Grand Prix, having lapped 0.756 seconds slower than title rival and pole position man Casey Stoner.

Rossi explained that tyre problems, errors and traffic had all been issues on his qualifying laps.

"Regarding the qualifying tyres, unfortunately with the first one I made a mistake in braking and so lost that lap," he said.

"Then the second time around I rode quite well but tyre was too soft on the right side and didn't last all the way to the end of the lap, so we lost some time in the last section. Also in T1 I had to pass four or five slower riders and so I lost one or two tenths there also."

But he said the bike had performed much better in qualifying than in morning practice, when he had languished in 12th place.

"This morning we had quite a lot of problems, especially with the tyres," Rossi said.

"It was quite cold and with the temperature like this we didn't have enough traction and we suffered quite a bit. On the exit of the corners I was spinning a lot and this meant I was really quite slow.

"After this my engineers worked hard on the setting in order to find more traction for this afternoon, and actually we were able to improve the situation quite a bit so thanks to everyone for a good job."

He was also confident that his race settings are more competitive.

"This afternoon, with the race tyres, I had quite a good rhythm and the feeling was a lot better," Rossi said.

"It's not perfect and we still need to understand more about the final setting for tomorrow, especially on the front, because at the moment it's pushing a little bit too much and we need to resolve this."

Rossi believes that the track temperature will be critical to his fortunes in tomorrow's race.

"For tomorrow we haven't yet made a final decision about the tyres," he said.

"If it's hot then we have a good tyre already decided, if it's cooler like this morning then we will have to choose something different.

"We have some more work to do on the setting in warm-up, but this year it's always quite difficult to work in warm-up because we have to use different tyres to the ones we are keeping for the race.

"Anyway, we will do our best to try to find a way to improve the situation with the front so I can ride at the maximum during the race, which of course is going to be necessary.

"We hope for a good temperature, like this afternoon, because our tyre works a lot better when it's hot. For sure it will be a hard race but our rhythm with the race tyre is quite good so I think it can be possible to fight for a good result."