Valentino Rossi is faced with an uphill task in tomorrow’s Catalan Grand Prix, after struggling with set-up issues throughout today’s practices and qualifying in ninth position. Today’s session was in stark contrast to this time last year, when the Fiat Yamaha Team rider put his M1 on pole position for this same race.

The Italian and his crew have been working at the maximum throughout all four sessions so far in order to find the right set-up for their Bridgestone-Yamaha package, but Rossi is still lacking speed on the entrance to the corners. He was unable to improve much this afternoon even when using a qualifying tyre and will have to launch his attack tomorrow from the outside of the third row, whilst his championship rivals Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa fill the front two spots. The team will now look to make further changes overnight and then use tomorrow’s warm-up session to maximum effect in order to try to find a setting which can enable Rossi to fight his way through the pack and play a part in tomorrow’s 25-lap race.

In contrast to the busy scenes on the number 46 side of the garage, the opposite side of the box was completely quiet today following Jorge Lorenzo’s accident yesterday, which has forced the 21-year-old to spend the remainder of his home Grand Prix weekend resting in hospital. It was a more positive day in the Tech 3 Yamaha box however, as Colin Edwards and James Toseland qualified fifth and sixth respectively.

Rossi: