Ducati's Valentino Rossi has described his pace dܫuring the opening day of practice at Assen for Saturday's Dutch TT as a 'decent step forward'.

Rossi ღended the day just ninth fastest on combined times, but the Italian superstar was only four tenths of a second behind Ben Spies at the topꦐ of the times.

The nine-times world champion managed his bes☂t time on the harder compound rear tyre - albeit whilst following Dani Pedrosa - putting him as high as fourth, before he ended the afterno💜on with the eighth quickest time.

Rossi, whose team-mat🦋e Nicky Hayden s📖et the third fastest time on a soft compound rear in the afternoon heat, said:

"Today went pretty 🎶well, 💙especially in the afternoon. I'm eighth, but the gap to the front is only four tenths, which is a decent step forward for us.

"Now the bike works well with new tyres, but we have to keep working on ou𒅌r race pace," he added.

"Both Nicky and I start sliding a lot when the tyre is worn, so we have to slow down too much compare✤d to the others.

"Tomorrow, in order to be more consistent and improve the pace, we must try to improve rear grip without losing it at the fﷺront. Anyway, today wasn't a bad start."