Valentino Rossi couldn't hide his dissatisfaction at concluding the second Sepang MotoGP test in eleventh place, almost two-seconds from the top.
After feeling 'quite confident' following Tuesday's opening day, when he was ninth (on hard tyres) and one-second from the front, Rossi was then forced to miss the whole second day due to fever.
The seven time MotoGP world champion returned today eager to try and make up for lost time - and rode for 59 laps in the very tiring Malaysian heat. But there was to be small reward.
Rossi struggled with cornering and lost a further 0.8sec relative to fastest man Casey Stoner. There are now just two more days of difficult, at Qatar, before his first race as a Ducati rider.
“The first day was not so bad, because I was previously on the lap time of the first test [earlier this month] and we were one-second from the top,” said Rossi.
“We were quite certain for day two because we had a lot of things to try, like a dissimilar setting for the rear, some swingarm link, different suspension.
“I was quite hopeful to improve our lap time, then unluckily yesterday I could not ride so we lost one day and that made things more difficult.
“Anyway today I felt okay. I made nearly 60 laps and worked a lot on the bike, but unluckily we didn't fix our problem.
“We are not fast enough in the corners. We have a problem for rotating the bike, so I always have to slow down too much to make the first-class line. I cannot ride the Desmosedici in the right way.
