After six poles, six podiums and coming&ಞnbsp;agonisingly close to the first ever MotoGP win by a satellite M1, Johan💖n Zarco's switch to the factory KTM team has so far yielded a best of just 13th place.

The Frenchman is far from the only rider to face difficulties after leaving Yamaha, regarded as one of the most rider-friendly machines on the grid,⛄ with Valentino Rossi famously struggling after joining Ducati in 2011.

The Doctor, who began his premier-꧋class career with three titles for Honda, did not win again until he returned to Ya🍃maha in 2013.

"In the last years three good riders - me, Lorenzo and also Zarco - have some proble♉m when we stop with Yamaha. Me an💫d Jorge with the Ducati and now Zarco with KTM," Rossi said, when asked for his opinion on the Frenchman's predicament at Jerez on Thursday.

"For me Yamaha maybe has some other weak points but it is a very friendly bike for the rider. And in the case of Zarco, that always used Yamaha in MotoGP, when yo൩u change the bike it's difficult.

"It's also true that it depends on which bike you go. But looks like the KTM is very different compared to our bike. Maybe it has some good point🌳s, but in some other areas it has more problems.

"So for me he don’t [have the right] feeling with the bike, because Zarco has demonstrated that he is very fast. So maybe he🍨 needs time anಌd it's because the two bikes are quite different in the way to ride."

Current title leader Andrea💯 Dov🗹izioso used a successful 2012 season at Tech3 Yamaha as a springboard to the factory Ducati team. But the Italian went from six podiums on the M1, to zero during his first year with the Desmosedici.

"When you change the bike, the change is normally very big. B♏ut every bike have a ꧋different characteristic, different story and I can't know the real story from KTM. So I don’t know," he said of Zarco.

"I thinꦕk everybody expected a bit more from the results from Zarco, but this maybe it shows the reality because the level in MotoGP🔜 is really high.

"The confirmation is also Yamaha. In the last two years they did good results bꦦut they struggled a little bit compared to the past because the level is really high and everybody works really hard and the development is constant."

Dovizioso added that Zarco may have underestimated the differenc💧e he would face at KTM, explaining how easy it can be to reach false impressions of another bike.

"I think it's quite normal what happened [with Zarco] because when you use on💮e bike, just one𒉰 manufacturer, you think you know more than you really know about the other bikes," Dovizioso said.

"And until you are on the bike it is impossib𝄹le to know exactly. It happened to me and I think it happened to all or most of the riders. And it's normal.

"The bike I think is completely different, from Yamaha and KTM. I think he needs time and also KTM for sure at the moment is not at the level of Yamaha, or the other bikes. So it's normal and this is the reality 🍌of MotoGP."

Zarco's former Tech3 team-mate Hafizh Syahrin is yet to score a point on the RC16ꦇ.

Both 🎉riders are hoping that the arrival of new parts at Jerez can help transform their fo🐼rtunes.

🐭"I don't want to always compare with the previous bike because it is a𓃲 mistake," Zarco said on Thursday about KTM/Yamaha comparisons. "It is not good to think in this way and during these 15 days I understood that.

"We are♎ doing some things to make the bike work better and where we are struggling the most is into the corner and the bike prefers to go🐎 straight! It’s difficult when you have a full championship with many corners! It would be good to improve the corners.

"The main target is still the top ten and it is the target I wanted from Qatar. I have been far in the last two races but it doesn't mean I will be far this weeke🍬nd. It is like a new page we are writ꧒ing all the time..."