Fright for 1st Turkey title

Valentino Rossi hopes to win for the first time at Istanbul as he bids to strengthen his place at the top of the MotoGP standings.

The Fiat Yamaha team rider has never won at the Turkish venue but aims to put that right on Sunday as he bids to pull further away from Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner in the championship standings.

Rossi does not favour Istanbul or the following venue in the championship, Shanghai in China, but has set his sights on a first win in Turkey.

"The next two races, Turkey and China, are ones that I don't like so much and I have never won at Istanbul, but it's a great circuit with some very fast corners," said Rossi.

"If the bike works well then it will be great fun I think. Last year I made an error early in the race and it cost me the chance for a podium, but I won't be making the same mistake this year.

"We are leading the championship but it's a long season and we have to aim to get on the podium at every race."

Rossi knows Stoner's Ducati will have the edge in the next two GPs as the layout favours his bike's superior top speed.

"The difficult thing over the next two races is going to be horsepower, because both Istanbul and Shanghai have very long straights," said Rossi.

"We tried some new things at the Jerez test to improve this and I know that Yamaha have been working very hard in Japan so hopefully we will have a little bit of improvement in this area when we get to Turkey."