James Ellison Tech3 Yamaha MotoGP rider

We're three races into the 2006 MotoGP season now, and this year's championship has been closer and tougher than ever.

Bad weather caused problems for Ellison (left) in Turkey

And that means that if you're a tiny bit out, or there's something not working right with the bike or the tyres, as happened to me last time out in Turkey, you're an absolute mile off on paper.

It doesn't mean you're going slow, it just means that everybody else is trying so hard that everything needs to be working 100% for you to compete.

That's why it's the elite championship in the world.

If you're at the back of the grid, it doesn't mean you're a naff rider, you're just not quite on it that particular race. There's always circuits where it will work, and the odd one where it won't.

Dunlop are still developing the tyres to go with the bike - what we need is a test at each circuit to work out what tyres would work, but that's now allowed.

Carlos Checa and I used different tyres, his lasted until the end of the race but mine only lasted about five laps - it was just lucky for him

We haven't had enough time to get enough information to go to a circuit and say 'right, we're using this tyre'.

At the moment we just have a process of elimination, but in Turkey, it rained and that ruined our plans, leaving us with not enough time to find a race tyre.

My team-mate Carlos Checa and I used different tyres, he used a hard one which lasted until the end of the race but mine only lasted about five laps - it was just lucky for him that he got the ones that worked.

After the second race of the season in Qatar, we had a day's testing and I changed my front tyre.

Just by doing that, I was 30 seconds faster over the race distance, which would have put me 20 seconds ahead of Carlos in the race - but we only found out afterwards.

I know what people have been expecting and I know what I expected, but when I got on the bike I realised there was a lot of work to do.

It's not that they're not trying, but the team just haven't had as much experience as the other manufacturers on the other bikes - this is their first year with a MotoGP bike on the grid.

It's going to be difficult, but I'm still optimistic - once we get things going, I know that I personally will be able to get the results.

I know it's still in there somewhere, I just need the package to be able to deliver.

James Ellison will write a regular column for this website throughout the MotoGP season