MotoGP: Rossi determined to sort practice form

Valentino Rossi says he needs to improve his practice form from this weekend's Catalunya Grand Prix if he is to fend off Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo's 2015 MotoGP title challenge.

Rossi won two of the opening three rounds to build an early advantage at the head of the standings, but Lorenzo has cut a 29-point deficit to the Italian down to just a six point margin with a hat-trick of wins at Jerez, Le Mans and Mugello.

Seven-time MotoGP champion Rossi believes the key is to get on top of his set-up faster during practice and qualifying so he stops going into Sundays on the back foot to Lorenzo - who has often set the pace from the first laps of practice in recent rounds.

"For me the practice is not fantastic," said Rossi, ahead of the Barcelona race. "It's not very good for my style.

"What we need is to concentrate on ourselves and improve the pace and the setting, especially in practice, because it looks like we are always competitive in the race but this year we suffer too much in practice. We have to improve this."

Rossi admits that title rival Lorenzo has been the better rider in recent weeks, but he is hopeful that he can beat the Spaniard at Barcelona if he can match his teammate's practice form.

"We are very worried," said Rossi. "In the last races I did some good races to arrive always on the podium, but Jorge has been very fast, especially since Jerez and has been able to recover a lot of points. Jerez and Mugello were two weekends when Jorge could make more difference than me.

"In the last races Jorge has always found a good solution, a good setup from the beginning and was able to concentrate more on his riding-style and arrived to the race at the maximum, at 100 percent. This is the way to do it, we hope this time to be more competitive from the beginning, to be closer."

Originally on Autosport.com