Valentino Rossi believes the updated chassis he first tested after Barcelona saved his MotoGP race yesterday at the Sachsenring.

The nine-time world champion has to settle for fifth place in Germany but thinks that without the frame upgrade he could have been in the same situation as Montmelo or Jerez.

"Usually I'm not happy with fifth place, because I want to try to fight for the podium every week. But after this weekend, the result is not so bad because the race was very difficult, very tough, from the beginning to the end. Always pushing to the maximum with somebody '0.0' behind,” said Rossi, speaking at the track.

"We were also a little bit unlucky because during practice I broke the good bike two times. Unfortunately we have just one chassis, so for the work it was a problem. I also started just in the third row, and here it is quite difficult to overtake. If I can start a little bit more in front I think that I can stay with Pedrosa and maybe fight for the podium.

"But on the other hand we were lucky it was dry for the race, because in the wet we were struggling. And in a championship like this year, these are important points because sometimes you can have a great feeling, then in other tracks, like this weekend, you suffer more. So it's important to take good points."

"I'm happy because if we don't have the new chassis I think that today would have been like Jerez and Barcelona. We are able to work better on the bike and especially with the new chassis we can be more competitive and had a good pace, from the beginning to the end.

"So we are on the good way. We have to try to arrive in front of the satellite [Tech 3] bike, but from the other side if you look at the championship, me and Maverick are in front of them. That means in nine races we made more points than the satellite bike."