Rossi happy with qualifying set-up

Despite setting only the 18th best time in this morning's third free practice session, Rossi was confident his Michelin tyres will work well in qualifying after his fifth position in yesterday's second session.

"We know a little bit the bike, so we move the setting for qualifying," the Italian said. "We know we need some modifications to the rear suspension especially, and the qualifier from Michelin works very well on lap one."

Rossi then compared the 1:41.198 he set yesterday with the 1:38.394 he set in the IRTA test at Jerez in February which won him a BMW road car.

"Two point five seconds is a lot, a 38.3 is a great laptime, I think with that laptime it is possible to get pole. At the same time I think it is difficult because we will only have two qualifying tyres, and in the BMW test we had four.

"It is difficult, but we try. We are quite fast with the qualifiers, we have more problems with the race tyre."

Rossi, however, also expects improvements with Bridgestone's qualifying tyres, used by rivals Ducati who qualified in second and won the Qatar GP in the hands of Casey Stoner. The top Bridgestone rider at the IRTA test was Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet in fifth place.

"For me, Bridgestone has worked very much after the test, and their qualifiers are better, so I expect them to be fast in qualifying," concluded Rossi.