Right in the middle of his contract negotiations, Ducati's great white hope Jorge Lorenzo slumped to 22nd on the Buriram MotoGP test timesheets even after swapping from the GP18 to last year's Desmosecidi and back again.

Lorenzo had Danilo Petrucci's spare GP17 hauled into his own box for comparison purposes but made no difference as the former champion couldn't find his way out of the 1'31s bracket, some 1.9s slower than fastest man Dani Pedrosa.

"On the last day in Sepang I was in first position and here I'm 22nd. But we cannot take this as a conclusion because all the riders tried to make a quick lap time in the morning and I was going with old tyres. We are much better than this 22nd position. Probably we are not in the top three, but also we are not in the last three," said Lorenzo, speaking at the track.

"Today and also the first day have been difficult. Not so much confidence, very far from the top riders. So that's why, in a difficult situation, we decided to try again the old bike.

"It has been important to try again the old bike that still has some points that are better than the new one, but also some points worse.

"The problem is that for Qatar it is going to be difficult to make a mix, but if I have to chose at the moment and take a conclusion I think with the new bike we have a bigger potential.

"We have to be patient probably in the first races, try to get the best results that we can. Probably Qatar will be much better than here - like we were in Sepang - and wait for some kind of mix as soon as possible to be more competitive."