Yamaha not optimistic about race

Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards have been unhappy with their bikes and tyres all weekend, and could only qualify ninth and 13th.

The Italian thought their situation might be improving in morning practice, but lost ground again in qualifying and made an error on his final flying lap.

"This morning things were feeling better for us and we were a little bit more confident," said Rossi. "Unfortunately this afternoon, with the higher temperatures, our tyres didn't work in the same way and we were much slower and sliding quite a lot.

"With the qualifying tyre I was quite confident and they worked quite well, as they have all season, and I thought there was a chance for the front row. With the second one I thought we could improve again but I had a slide in the third section and lost some time, and so now we are on the third row.

"I am quite disappointed because our race pace is not good at the moment and we needed to be on the front row to give us the best chance possible for tomorrow.

"It will be difficult to use the warm-up to our advantage because the conditions are different to those we will probably have during the race, but anyway we will do what we can and try to make the best from the situation."

Edwards was even more downcast after lapping six tenths of a second slower than his teammate.

"There's really very little to say about today and I think it's better if I say 'no comment.' We've got some big problems and it hasn't been fun," he said.

"I want to say thanks to all my guys; they're working so hard to try and make a difference and find a way to improve things and I know they won't give up at any point.

"It's going to be a very hard race but it's not over till it's over so we'll just have to wait and see what we can improve before 3pm tomorrow and what happens after the lights go out."

Team director Davide Brivio admitted that Yamaha currently had no solutions for their lack of speed.

"We're in quite a difficult position and now we have to try our hardest to find a better package for the race," he said.

"At the moment we just don't have enough grip and both riders are struggling to contend with this, so we are quite slow.

"This morning both Valentino and Colin made some good improvements but this afternoon we were unable to continue in the same way.

"We couldn't find the right combination to challenge with today but we have some ideas and we will be doing our utmost to give both of them a more competitive package for tomorrow's race."