Valentino Rossi is faced with an uphill task in tomorrow's Catalan Grand Prix, after struggling with set-up issues throughout today's practices and qualifying in ninth position. Today's session was in stark contrast to this time last year, when the Fiat Yamaha Team rider put his M1 on pole position for this same race.

The Italian and his crew have been working at the maximum throughout all four sessions so far in order to find the right set-up for their Bridgestone-Yamaha package, but Rossi is still lacking speed on the entrance to the corners. He was unable to improve much this afternoon even when using a qualifying tyre and will have to launch his attack tomorrow from the outside of the third row, whilst his championship rivals Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa fill the front two spots.

The team will now look to make further changes overnight and then use tomorrow's warm-up session to maximum effect in order to try to find a setting which can enable Rossi to fight his way through the pack and play a part in tomorrow's 25-lap race.

In contrast to the busy scenes on the number 46 side of the garage, the opposite side of the box was completely quiet today following Jorge Lorenzo's accident yesterday, which has forced the 21-year-old to spend the remainder of his home Grand Prix weekend resting in hospital. It was a more positive day in the Tech 3 Yamaha box however, as Colin Edwards and James Toseland qualified fifth and sixth respectively.

Valentino Rossi 9th 1'42.420; "This was quite a bad qualifying session for us! We had a lot of problems and now, unfortunately, we will have to start from the third row, our worst qualifying result so far this season. Tomorrow for sure will be a very hard race for us. We've tried to improve the setting but we haven't been able to fix our problems, the main one of which is that we are not fast enough on the entry to the corners. Now we need to work all afternoon to try to find a solution and then see what we can do tomorrow.

25 laps is going to be quite difficult but we will try to come up with a plan and then I will try to recover as many positions as possible at the start and through the first few corners. If we can make a few small improvements and improve the feeling then we can try to do something tomorrow, we'll just have to wait and see."

Davide Brivio Team Manager; "We will have a difficult start tomorrow; 9th on the grid is not what we hoped for but we have been in worse positions so now our task is to analyse the data we have from today's practice and learn what we can from this information. We've tried many different things over these two days and unfortunately, so far, we haven't been able to find the right set-up for our package at this track.

So now we need to study everything carefully, come up with some good ideas and then put everything together in a different way. If we can improve the bike then we know that Valentino will be able to try and fight, so this is our task!"

Meanwhile Jorge Lorenzo is recovering well in hospital following his crash yesterday afternoon. The Spanish rookie passed the night in Barcelona's Institut Dexues under the watchful eye of Dr. Xavier Mir, after hitting his head and injuring his right hand in the fall. Lorenzo will remain at the hospital for at least another 24 hours for more rest and observation and further information will be available tomorrow.

Dr. Xavier Mir; "I am pleased to say that Jorge's condition is improving well.He passed a good night and has had a good rest. We cannot say anything in more detail until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, but I am pleased to say that he has recovered his memory 100%. Tomorrow we will make another neurological examination and also another examination of his right hand, when we will decide whether a skin graft will be necessary on his fourth and fifth fingers."

Colin Edwards and James Toseland will start tomorrow's 25-lap Catalunya GP from next to each other on the second row of the grid after both led this afternoon's qualifying session.

Edwards was just 0.2s off the front row but still maintained his impressive qualifying record in 2008 to register a seventh straight top five position on the grid. Toseland, who has adapted to the technical Catalunya circuit amazingly fast, was just one place and 0.211s back in sixth with his best qualifying performance since the Estoril round in Portugal.

The Tech 3 Yamaha duo are happy to have qualified together on the second row having posted competitive lap times all weekend on race tyres. Both are confident their fast pace on race tyres will help them play a leading role in tomorrow's race. Edwards and Toseland have been able to run a constant pace in the 1.43 bracket, and believe they can fine-tune their YZR-M1 settings in the warm-up session to further boost their chances of a positive result.

Colin Edwards 5th 1'41.609; "I had three qualifying tyres and obviously I was trying my hardest for a front row but I'll take fifth because I'm really happy with my race set-up. With all the extra grip from the qualifiers I feel like we can go much faster but it never really happened. I did a 41.7 on my first tyre and my last tyre was a 1.41.7, so I hit a bit of a wall. I'm fifth and I'm not disappointed with that at all. Once you get off the second row you dread the alarm clock going off in the morning, so I'm happy to be on the second row.

Today is all for glitz and glamour but tomorrow is the real show and my times on race tyres look pretty good, so if we can repeat that tomorrow we'll be in the hunt. This weekend I've been tinkering with the bike quite a lot, more than we have all season so far. Yesterday we had a good setting but we needed more rear grip. We have found that today so thanks to my guys at Tech 3 because as usual they did a great job.

We are working in the right direction although we had to tweak the front a bit. When you get more rear grip you create some other issues and we had to play with the front a bit. We've got it better but we'll try something in the warm-up. We know the direction to go with Michelin but the key will be getting a good start. I really need to focus on that and be as hard and aggressive as I can in the first four laps. That's when the guy's tyres will start to go off and hopefully I'll be able to go with the leading bunch."

James Toseland 6th 1'41.820; "I'm chuffed to bits to be on the second row and I'll be honest but I did put it on the line a bit. But you have to do that because to give yourself a chance you don't want to be any further back than the second row and thankfully that's where I am. When there is a tight first corner like here it can spread people out early on so a good start will be crucial.

That first corner looks a bit tricky but hopefully I'll get through it cleanly. I tried a lot of changes on the bike today and they all moved me in the right direction, so thanks to Tech 3 for that. Now we've got a decent base setting I don't have to make big changes and it is just a case of tweaking things. With the extra grip we've found from the rear I sacrificed a bit on the front, but we made a change today that helped with stability for the faster corners.

The difference between the second and third row is massive and I'm happy to be back in the top six. You really need experience on the qualifiers and I'm gradually building up my speed and confidence with them and Michelin is doing a great job.

Qualifying is amazingly competitive so I'm happy with sixth. These guys will not allow you to blink and I must have blinked on that lap otherwise I would have been higher up the grid. Everybody is so close it will be crucial to get that good start. I think I can definitely run the pace at the front and I am looking forward to it."

1 Casey Stoner Ducati AUS 1'41.186

2 Daniel Pedrosa Honda ESP 1'41.269

3 Nicky Hayden Honda USA 1'41.437

4 Randy De Puniet Honda FRA 1'41.571

5 Colin Edwards Yamaha USA 1'41.609

6 James Toseland Yamaha GBR 1'41.820

7 Andrea Dovizioso Honda ITA 1'42.053

8 Chris Vermeulen Suzuki AUS 1'42.365

9 Valentino Rossi Yamaha ITA 1'42.427

10 Alex De Angelis Honda SMR 1'42.580

11 Shinya Nakano Honda JPN 1'42.643

12 Loris Capirossi Suzuki ITA 1'42.648

13 Toni Elias Ducati ESP 1'42.808

14 John Hopkins Kawasaki USA 1'42.819

15 Sylvain Guintoli Ducati FRA 1'43.204

- Yamaha Racing , Amsterdam -