Valentino Rossi may ditch the 2016 MotoGP YZR-M1 Yamaha have built as the se-up is now too radical for the Michelin tyres which have improved greatly since the last test at Valencia.

Rossi has ridden a modified version of the 2015 bike on the first day of testing at Sepang and thinks that the new bike may be too extreme, preferring a version closer to that on which he came runner-up in the title stakes last year. Rossi also has a standard 2015 bike to ride.

“One bike is the 2015 and I make some lap for the feeling. And after we have two bike, one more similar to the 2015 and one more modified. Today I concentrate on the bike more similar to the 2015 because of time because we have to work on electronic especially. I try the other one one time and the feeling was not so bad but at this moment I don’t know if it is better. The Michelin has improved already and that bike was for the old Michelin so I don’t know now if we need that bike or not,” said The Doctor, speaking at Sepang.

Rossi added that although his electronics guys have made a lot of headway with the unified software, there is only so much you can do with something that is worse than what you had last year.

“Usually when our engineer work on electronics, they fix the problem because they are good. It is something less sophisticated than we expect but already the bike is good to ride. In Valencia it was a lot worse but for me it can be interesting. You cannot arrive to the level of last year for sure because is like you have a Mac and a computer of ten years ago. It can work but for me the electronic is a part that improves always. Everything is a little bit worse, you can do less.”