Factory Movistar Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi said that he is hoping for rain tomorrow after a disastrous MotoGP qualifying session, which will see him, start from sixteenth position in Valencia.

After a nasty looking highside in FP3, Rossi struggled through FP4 and qualifying one as the cold track continued to dry out after morning rain. Showing strong pace on Friday in the rain and with rain forecast for tomorrow, Rossi will be hoping to find the pace from Friday.

“It was a very difficult day for me,” said the 39-year-old.

“After the practice of yesterday, I was quite optimistic about being strong because I feel good. But this morning in FP3, which was very important, I was not fast. I tried to push at the beginning but I crashed.

“After that I took the other bike but I didn’t have the pace and enough feeling to go into the top ten.

“So we modified something for the afternoon, but at the same time the condition are different and becoming dry. But in reality in FP4 and in the afternoon I never had a very good feeling with the bike.

The Italian said he was struggling to stop his YZR-M1, as well as having issues accelerating.

“I felt uncomfortable,” he said.

“I cannot push and I was quite slow. So for tomorrow I have to start from very behind. I was in trouble a lot with braking. I can’t stop. I have front lock and always arrive too fast in the corner.

“Also in acceleration I don’t have a lot of grip so it is very difficult to ride. I try but I was not fast enough. Now we will try to improve, we will work to improve our base, our feeling, and after we will wait to see the conditions because the forecast is quite bad for tomorrow.

“Yesterday in water ,I felt good. It looks like it changed a lot here. In case of a wet race when you start behind on the first lap it is more difficult because you have a lot of spray, it’s difficult to see.

“But it will depend very much on the pace whether we can be stronger and with a good feeling with the bike. We will try to come back and recover some positions.”