Source: Supplied.

Movistar Yamaha duo Valentino Rossi and Maverick Viñales will use today’s MotoGP test at Jerez to try and rectify issues that struck them both in Sunday’s race.

World championship leader Rossi limped to 10th, four places behind Viñales in sixth, as Honda teammates Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez scored their second double-podium in a row.

Rossi and Viñales are 1-2 in the standings four rounds in, but will have to quickly recover if Marquez continues to charge up the ladder. The leading trio are currently separated by four points.

“It was a very difficult race after a difficult weekend,” Rossi reflected. “I never had a good feeling with the bike and the tyres. We tried to work a lot, especially to fix the spin and acceleration, but unfortunately for the race we did worse. We tried to modify it a bit, but I was also in trouble with the front.

“At the end I had to slow down a lot and had a lot of vibration. It was okay to arrive right at the end, but it was a difficult weekend for the whole team. We expected to be stronger and more competitive at this track, looking at the results of last year. We need to try and understand what happened, tomorrow we have the test and we’ll see.”

Teammate Viñales, who won the opening two rounds of the season before crashing out in America, was also lacking feel on race-day in the first European round of the season and rued the vital loss of championship points.

“It was a strange day,” Viñales said. “In the warm-up I was feeling really good, so precise in all the breaking points, but in the afternoon I didn’t have the same feeling.

“I felt like I was going to crash in nearly every corner, so it was a really strange and difficult day for us. It has been difficult for both sides of the box. We have to think about what happened and try to improve for the next races, because we lost some important points for the championship.”

Despite factory teammates Rossi and Viñales being unable to make a significant impact, Monster Energy Yamaha Tech3 rookie Johann Zarco starred on his way to fourth and top of the M1s.