Despite being pushed back to a second row start for Sunday's French Grand Prix at Le Mans,
Valentino Rossi is confident he has the race pace to fight for his 90th grand prix victory on Sunday.
Following on from a tricky Friday afternoon, in which Rossi was the only rider not to improve on his first session time, Saturday began much better for the Italian - who took his Fiat Yamaha to second position behind Tech 3 Yamaha's
Colin Edwards.
Whilst Michelin continues to hold the edge in qualifying, Rossi, who took his first
Bridgestone victory last time out in Shanghai, was aiming for a front row start - something he was ultimately denied when
Dani Pedrosa, Edwards and world champion
Casey Stoner all lapped faster than the #46 during an exciting conclusion to the qualifying hour.
"Today everything seemed to go very well and I was quite confident; I thought that with the last qualifying tyre I could do 1'32.9 or even 8 and be on the front row, but at the end we had a small problem and couldn't manage this," explained Rossi, who was left 0.5secs from world championship leader Pedrosa.
"Of course the first row is always better but with the race tyres we are in good shape, with a strong rhythm and a great set-up. Tomorrow I will look to make a good start, try to get to the front immediately and then try to stay there with the other fast riders.
"As I said, our race pace is fine but there are four or five other riders with a similar fast pace so it's going to be a very interesting race tomorrow!" he added. "My target is to be on the podium so now we're hoping for another dry day and then we will do our very best to be there."
Rossi's injured team-mate
Jorge Lorenzo will start fifth on the grid.
