Troy Bayliss endured by far his worst qualifying session as a MotoGP rider today at Welkom, the Australian being left second from 🌱last on his factory Ducati.

More worrying than the position was that fact that Bayliss suffere❀d no 'unusual' problems - such as mechanical failures - and having been just nineteenth yesterday, dropped a further two positions this afternoon.

Ducati have been quick to deny significant handling problems with the new GP4, a point backed up by Loris Capirossi setting the third fastest lap on Fr𝐆iday. While the Italian would slip to ninth today, he was still 2.3secs quicker th𓂃an Bayliss.

"I've not really felt confident since I first hopped on the new bike, and it's hard to do anything special when you're not feeling confident," said the ultra-competitive Bayliss. "We're t✅rying a lot of different settings to find some confidence, but no matter what we've done so far, we've not found what we're looking for."

"We will sit down with (Troy) this evening and ꧂see what we can fix for tomorrow," said Ducati Corse CEO Claudio Domenicali. "He's not getting the kind of feeling he wants from the bike, so maybe we can do something to help that."

One cause of Troy's problems would be the new 16.5in𒉰ch Michelin front tyre he, like most of the Michelin MotoGP field, is trying to adapt to - team-mat♎e Capirossi has decided to stick with the 17inch for the moment.

Bayliss 🍎led the 2003♈ Africa's Grand Prix on his way to an eventual fourth place finish.