Valentino Rossi feels he is getting more comfortable with his Yamaha earlier in grands prix weekends than he did last year while leading the championship.

The Italian won two of the first three grands prix in 2015, headed to the first European race at Jerez with a six-point championship lead, and only lost top spot at the final hurdle. His start to the new campaign has not been as fruitful, as he sits third in the standings, 33 points behind Marc Marquez after crashing out of the Circuit of The Americas race two weeks ago.

Having identified a need to improve his practice form last year, Rossi believes progress has been made, and that his general feeling on the M1 is better earlier than it was. Rossi finished Friday’s Jerez practice sessions fifth and third, an improvement on sixth and 13th in the corresponding 2015 sessions.

“I always try to work on the first laps because it’s very important, the top riders are very strong from the beginning, especially [Jorge] Lorenzo,” he said. “I feel good with the bike. Last year I was more in trouble for finding the right balance.

“It looks like this year we work well with the team and we can be strong from the beginning. This is very important – but anyway, it’s more important to be strong on Sunday.”

Friday pacesetter Lorenzo conceded that his tire usage, opting for new tires late in each session while others stuck to used rubber, made the results “difficult to analyze.” Rossi used the same set of tires all day with a view to assessing degradation, and believes he is close to what his Yamaha teammate and Marquez managed.

“I am quite satisfied about today because I was competitive from the beginning, especially because I had a good feeling with the bike from the first practice,” he said. “Both this morning and this afternoon, I never changed the tires, so I always arrived with the used tires, trying to understand my pace with the tire with more than 15 or 20 laps.

“The degradation, especially about the rear, is quite high, [with] a lot of spin. It’s true that the tires spin, but the feeling remained good with the bike, and also the pace is quite good.”