Valentino Rossi compared today’s Thai MotoGP to a cycle race after finishing fourth, just 1.564 seconds beind race winner Marc Marquez.

‘The Doctor’ has been struggling this season, going winless in 23 races since Assen 2017. However, the Movistar Yamaha team appeared to find something this weekend with both riders finishing in third and fourth respectively.

Rossi said that the tactics at the front of the race today aided his fourth place, with the Italian comparing today’s MotoGP race to a bicycle race.

“I felt very good and I arrived at the end of the race with enough power to fight,” said the 39-year-old.

“But I tried for all the race to save the tyres, like everybody, because it’s more like a cycle race now. Everybody waiting, sometimes one rider will push for two laps and all the other guys follow, but after they slow down and another one tries to lea, you never push for the entire race.

“I tried, but in the last laps I was more in trouble and I missed two or three tenths.”

Despite making small changes to the M1, Yamaha aren’t convinced that they have solved all their issues, thinking that the track and hard casing Michelin’s had a factor in their good weekend.

“We need to understand how much is this track, or how much we improved the bike,” he said.

“On paper this track was not a Yamaha track. But we feel better with the bike. Me and also Maverick are strong. Maybe we improved a little bit, but now we have to see in Motegi.

“For me, more than the layout of a track, it’s the difference in the grip of the asphalt that helps us more or less at the moment.”