The Fiat Yamaha Team of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards will run a special one-off livery on their bikes and leathers for the Australian Grand Prix in Phillip Island this weekend, starting from Free Practice on Friday. The livery has been inspired by the famous ‘Abarth' brand, a division of Fiat Automobiles SpA.

The Abarth brand has been re-launched by Fiat this year with several new models and this weekend's livery is designed to celebrate that. The Fiat Group Automobiles-owned sporty brand was 'previewed' at the Geneva Motor Show in the spring and the first full production model, the Grande Punto Abarth, has recently arrived in the Italian showrooms. The brand will be shown at the Tokyo Motor Show later this month while an Abarth-tuned version of the 500 will hit the showrooms early next year along with a more powerful version of the Grande Punto Abarth, dubbed the Essesse. A dedicated dealer network is being implemented.

The special livery, which will be run throughout this weekend, uses all the elements of the logo - the Scorpion, which is synonymous with the brand, the white and red flag and the word ‘Abarth'. The Fiat Yamaha Team's bikes will be on display at 09.45 in the Phillip Island Pit Lane on Friday, 12th October, just before the start of Free Practice. This will be the last livery change of the season for the team. It is not the first as at the Assen Grand Prix in June the Fiat Yamaha Team ran special bike liveries inspired by the Fiat 500.
 

On that occasion it celebrated the fact that the new car was to be shortly afterwards presented (on 4 July) in Turin at an extraordinary international event. That livery was the work of Drudi, a highly regarded MotoGP sector designer, and derived from research into the discography of the Fifties (the first Fiat 500 came out in 1957), starting from an in-depth study of the record sleeves of the period. These were the years of the economic boom, the twist, rock’n’roll, the first electric guitars, Elvis and Italy’s Rita Pavone with her “Geghegè”.

The Fiat Yamaha Team have now arrived for the ante-penultimate instalment of this year's MotoGP World Championship in Australia this weekend in the knowledge that the title has slipped from their grasp but with the clear focus of race wins and improved performance from the YZR-M1 machine to come over the last three rounds. Whilst the long-term target of the team has switched to a stronger challenge for honours in 2008, there is still the important matter of three race victories and the runner-up spot in the championship up for grabs over the next month.