Rossi: I have the pace to fight Lorenzo and Pedrosa

Rossi qualified sixth at the Sachsenring, and rued mistakes on his fastest lap when his tyres were at their best.

“At the end I expected something a little bit better for the grid position,” said Rossi. “I had a better potential, unfortunately I wasn’t good enough to make the perfect lap on the best lap of the tyre. I left some tenths in two or three points.

“I wanted to try to start tomorrow‘s race more in front, I hoped that I could do a 1m20-high, but unfortunately I made some mistakes and I couldn’t do the perfect lap.

“I am on the second row, so I’m not so far behind, and that’s very important. It was a good day for me, we improve the bike a lot through practice."

Used tyre pace promising

Rossi believes his race pace will allow him to move forwards in tomorrow’s event.

“I can keep a good pace also with a used tyre,” he said. “So now we have to work and try to fix some small problems and make some small improvements for tomorrow and see what happens in the race.

“If you look at today’s pace, Marquez is a bit faster and Pedrosa is second, but Pedrosa is very, very close to my pace, tenth by tenth. After then comes me and Jorge and we are very similar.

“All the essentials are there, I will try to fight with Jorge, ride a good race and try to arrive in front of him and score more points.

“So the start will be very important, to try to stay with the top three.”