Nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi says he simply needs more time in order to make the most of his all-new Ducati Desmosedici GP11.1.

Rossi qualified 11th at Assen ahead of Saturday’s Dutch TT with a 1:36.564, struggling with only two hours to set up his new bike on a dry track.

“We’re disappointed with qualifying because we had started quite well yesterday, so clearly, we expected things to go better today,” the Italian said. “We had a decent session this morning, but we weren’t able to improve, so we’ll start 11th.

“The rear of the GP11.1 is better than the previous version, but we weren’t able to find a setup that allowed us to bring the tyres up to temperature, and at the moment, that’s making it difficult to find the feeling I need to ride hard and be strong on corner entry.

“I don’t think we’ve yet learned how to properly adjust the bike, and that’s something we knew could happen since we have so little time available.

“Still, this all helps us to gather experience for the future, and we have some ideas for tomorrow’s warm-up session that we hope will help us go faster in the race.”

Rossi was almost a full second off the pace of rookie Ducati privateer Karel Abraham, who was seventh, and teammate Nicky Hayden, who qualified ninth.