Jonas Folger hopes he will gওet the chance to do at least one wild-card race entry as part ofꦆ his new role as Yamaha's European MotoGP test rider.

The German returned to the M1 at Valencia last month, just over a year after being forced to halt his racing career due to extreme fatigue problems while in the closing stages o🤪f a rookie premier-class campaign with Tech3 Yamaha.

Folger's stand-out ride from that season was a brilliant second place to Marc Marquez in front of his home fans at the Sachsenring. But perhaps the pair will get to r🐻enew their duel at the circuit in 2019…

"There is a chance, yes," Folger replied, when asked if he might get to do some wild-cards next season. "We were talking about it, but first of all we need to d🥂o some more tests and see if we are fast enough.

"But I want to do it, yes. I think there's𓆏 a chance, but first of all it's important to improve the bike for the other two [factory] riders. That's the main priority."

Folger has been brought in by Yamaha ⛦at the behest of Valentino 🎃Rossi and Maverick Vinales, who have both been pushing to have a fast, young rider helping to develop new parts for the M1.

Rossi even credited the absent Folger for helping him finish runner-ღup to Marquez at this year's German round.

🧸"Last year, Folger did 🧜a fantastic race, at the level of Marc," said the Italian. "So I studied Folger's [2017] race, all the lines and which way he rode the bike, which way he set-up the bike. Everything.

"Folger, last year, was a good help for me th🃏is year - so we have to give him 🐈the trophy!"

Folger's mission now is to help Yamaha regain the ground lost to Ducati and Honda, the factory instructing the 25-year-old th༒at they want to find "more life i🤪n the tyres, especially from the middle to the end of the race.

"So that's why we are going to try a lot of different mappings on the e🍌lectronics side," Folger explained.

"That's also why it feels so different to what෴ I used to know, because they are trying to make a smoother engine. That's what we are looking for."

Pressed on how the bike has changed since 2017, Folger replied: "It's just a different behaviour for the first touch of the throttle, so the power use is much different. It's smoother at the beginning, which is really good,⭕ but it was quite a big change for me as a rider."

Despite only doing some occasional Moto2 testing since his last M1 race appearance at Aragon 2017, Folger said he felt in good physi🐼cal shape and is happy to be back doing what he enjoys most.

"I'm good. It's my first ♎time on the bike after a long break, so I feel my arms a bit after these two days. But if you do more testing the body gets used to it and it's going to be better.

"I'm very happy to be a part of this new project from Yamaha and I can do what I want to do the most, which is riding a MotoGP bike. 🧸So I'm enjoying it."

Folger did not take part in the following Jerez test and recently injured his collarbone in a motocross training🥂 accident.

Fortunately, he h🌊as until the start of February to recover🍬 before he is due on track for Yamaha at the official Sepang test.

"Basically [Valencia] was more for me than for Yamaha, to try to understand the bike. Then we are going to continue 🧔at Sepang."