Franco Morbidelli was forced into 'defenc💖e mode' to salvage eleventh place on his Petronas Yamaha Sepang MotoGP debut, in Qatar.

The Italian paid the price for selecting the soft rear tyr🐻e as he dropped back from a high of eighth in the middle stages, but along the way he got to compare his M1 with the Honda RCV.

"I spent a lot of time with the Yamahas, but I also had the chance to see some Hondas and basically we are struggling in the acceleration area, the traction area, and also in top speed," Morbidel🌼li said.

"This is the main thing where w🔯e are missing compared to them."

Morbidelli's mentor Valentino Rossi finished as the top Yamaha in sixth place, just 0.6s from victory, with factory team-mat🍸e Maverick Vinales in seventh (+2.481s).

The Monster riders opted for medium tyres front and rear, while Morbidelli and🌱 rookie team-mate Fabio Quartararo went with a medium front-soft rear combin♕ation.

"I was feeling very strong in the beginning of the race and I was﷽ trying to manage the tyre, I wasn't going at the limit," Morbidelli said.

"I think🎃 everybody wasn't pushing a lot [at the start]. But I was able to recover positions quite fast and also, when they started pushing they made '55 low and in the beginning I was making mid '55, quite easily.

"So I'm happy about𓆉 that. I'm happy about the feeling I have with the bike and everything. We just didn't manage the tyre well. I had to slow down a lot and basically went into defence mode and tried to bring the bike to the end.

"Pity because I was fast also with the medium tyre, but I decided to go with the soft because I was a bi✤t faster and basically it didn't pay off.

"We just have to go to Argentina and s꧙💧ee how the level is there."

Quartararo recovered to 16th after stalling on the warm-up lapꦅ.