Rossi: Michelin must improve wets

The Italian moved from fourth to first at the start of the race, but fell down the order as conditions worsened later on. Rossi eventually finished sixth, 53 seconds behind the victorious Chris Vermeulen, and dropped to 21 points behind Casey Stoner in the championship standings.

"It's a great shame, because we made some modifications for dry conditions, and it seemed the bike was going very well," Rossi told Italia1 television.

"In fact in the first laps I was going very quick, I had a good start, and while my tyre was up to temperature my Yamaha worked well, that's why I was happy.

"I was hoping it wouldn't start to rain, because I could even build a bit of a gap. But then it started. In the first lap and a half in the rain I kept up with Vermeulen and (Marco) Melandri, but when it started to rain even more my tyre had a crisis."

Rossi admitted that his tyre compound and set-up choices may have been contributory factors, but believes that the current Michelins are ultimately inferior to the Bridgestones in the rain.

"It was probably too hard a tyre, or maybe there was a set-up problem," he said.

"In the end I was really standing still and was struggling to keep it on the track. A real big shame because it would have been so much better if it didn't rain."

"We have work to do and Michelin must give us a hand in doing something better, because the Bridgestones also in the rain looked from another planet.

"We certainly lack a bit of engine power on the long straights, we struggled a lot against Ducati. But in my opinion the main problem are the tyres.

"Bridgestone are consistently beating us. Today in the wet I managed to follow Vermeulen and Melandri a bit, but then they and Stoner too were much faster then us.

"Then I was also overtaken by the two Hondas, so maybe they had a softer compound. The more water, the harder it was for me. At the end my tyre looked new, so we probably chose the wrong tyre.

"I tried to take home a few points, and we lost six to Stoner - that's not toomany. But it's a shame because with no rain we could have done well."

He believes that Michelin now hold the key to his title prospects.

"I hope to get some new tyres (in tomorrow's test), because that's the thing that worries me the most," Rossi said.

"Technically Bridgestone are ahead of us at the moment, and as we've seen, if you don't have the tyres at their best, you can do very little."