Rossi ready to be crowned.

Untroubled by yesterday's crash and a brush with the local police (ironically for speeding), Valentino Rossi qualified a close second for the Australian GP.

The World Championship leader, who was caught speeding on the Island before Friday's first practice, only needs to finish eighth tomorrow to secure the title, but wants to do better.

"I'm satisfied with second time in practice, which is excellent considering I'm usually not so good in practice as I am in the race," began the Italian. "However, I'm not satisfied with the settings of the bike. At the moment my machine is a little 'twitchy', it's possible to make one fast lap but it's very difficult to put together 27 fast laps with the bike in this condition.

"This is a beautiful track but very technical and very difficult and I would really like to improve the machine settings in the warm-up tomorrow morning. In the past, many times my team has achieved 'miracles' on saturday night. It would be wonderful to celebrate my first 500 world title with a win in the race. But at the moment that does not look easy to achieve.

"Of course I feel tomorrow's race is a very important and at the moment I'm trying to stay relaxed treating the race like all others. In this sense my team and my close friends here with me are all helping me cope with the situation," Vale concluded.