Marlboro Ducati's MotoGP superstar Valentino Rossi on Saturday could qualify only 16th out of the 17 riders at Sachsenring. His best lap time of 1min 23.320sec was 1.639sec behind pole sitter Casey Stoner.

In addition, Rossi lapped 0.925sec slower than what he had managed on his return from a broken leg at previous year's event.

The Italian Ducati rider used the latest GP11.1 motorcycle, which features next year's (1000cc) chassis, equipped with an 800cc engine.

Rossi said that he was very distressed because he was very slow and close to last. He added that he used the new GP11.1 bike for three races to try to enhance on the performance of the old one, but he could not understand the bike.

Speaking on the topic, Rossi said, "I tried this bike with the 1000 engine and it was not so bad, but with the 800 engine the bike became very difficult to ride and I cannot load the front of the bike."

He indicated that he could ditch the new GP11.1 and switch back to the original Desmosedici GP11 MotoGP bike.