Valentino Rossi was frustrated with both his Ducati's handling and pain from his injured finger after practice at Phillip Island.
The Italian, who suffered a hairline fracture to his left hand in a first-lap tangle in Japan two weeks ago, was only 13th today.
"Today wasn't easy, especially since we had hoped to be better immediately, like at Motegi two weeks ago, as this track is normally good for the Ducati," said Rossi. "We started with the same setup, with just a small adjustment to the fork spring, but the feeling wasn't the same."
Although he admitted that his hand injury was an issue, Rossi felt that most of the time loss was due to setup issues.
"I wasn't able to ride well today, in part due to the pain in my left pinky finger, which bothered me more than I expected, but especially because of the feeling with the bike. I'm not able to brake well or enter corners well," he said. "Tomorrow we'll try stronger painkillers for my hand, and from a technical point of view, we'll look for a different solution to improve the front and to do better than 13th place.
"We won't change the setup completely. We'll probably move the position of the front wheel, but we're just talking about small changes."