Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo rounded off the third day and final day of MotoGP pre-season testing in Malaysia today with another day’s solid progress in Sepang for the Fiat Yamaha Team.

Valentino Rossi rounded off the third day of testing in Malaysia with another day’s solid progress in Sepang today, the Fiat Yamaha Team rider finishing the test sixth overall out of 22 riders testing. Rossi had time to complete a full race simulation of 21 laps and recorded a general improvement compared to last year’s race, despite slowing down for a lap in the middle in order to give himself a breather as temperatures topped 34 degrees.

Rossi’s best time after 48 laps, a lap of 2’01.425, was posted on a Bridgestone qualifier but the Italian admits there is more work to do in order to maximise bike set-up when using the softer qualifying tyres. Overall it was an extremely positive test for Rossi and his crew, who managed to complete everything on the schedule thanks to good weather throughout.

Rossi’s young team-mate Jorge Lorenzo had an equally promising three days and finished what was just his fourth test on a MotoGP bike in fine form today, rounding off testing in third place overall. The Spanish rookie posted his best lap from 63 on a Michelin qualifying tyre but also put in a string of consistently fast laps on race tyres, despite a fall cutting short his long run.

The youngster set out for his race simulation in sweltering conditions this morning and was posting some consistently fast times when he crashed on lap 17. He was unhurt however and was able to continue with Michelin tyre testing for the rest of the day, rounding off with an impressive time of 2’00.766 on a qualifying tyre, just 0.440 seconds off fastest man of the day Nicky Hayden and only 0.161 seconds off the existing Sepang pole record. Lorenzo’s team-mate Valentino Rossi meanwhile was sixth today with a best lap of 2’01.425.

The Team will return to Sepang again in ten days time for the second pre-season test of 2008, with another three day’s work planned for 5th, 6th and 7th February.

Valentino Rossi

“The overall balance of the three day test has been very positive and we’ve worked in many different areas. We’ve tested the pneumatic-valve engine and I have a good feeling from it, plus we’ve improved our top speed compared to the race here. I’m happy about the engine so far, although we want to make as much mileage as possible with it in order to check its reliability and performance. We’ve continued to work with the new electronics in braking and acceleration and the new system is helping us to have more control and make less mistakes. Of course we’ve also done a lot of work with Bridgestone on tyres, and we have found some positive things here. We need to improve our performance with the qualifying tyre; we need more time to better understand how to set-up our bike with the soft tyres and so we will continue to work on this next time. We’ve given a lot of information to Bridgestone this week and we look forward to more work together next time. Finally I was able to complete a good race simulation and overall my pace was better than in the race last year, even though I had to slow down for a bit in the middle because it was so hot! Anyway I really wanted to finish so I kept going and in the end I was very happy with my performance. It’s been a good test for us and now we’re looking forward to next time.”

Jorge Lorenzo

“Today was another positive day for me and it’s been an encouraging three days overall: I’m pleased with what we’ve achieved. I had a little problem this morning because I felt like I had a bit less grip than usual, so we had to work on this. Then I started my race simulation and unfortunately I crashed about three-quarters of the way through; I was a bit out of the line and when I accelerated I lost control of the bike. Before that my pace was not so bad and we had time to gather a lot of information before it happened, so it wasn’t the end of the world. I wasn’t hurt and so after that we started again with Michelin tyre testing and at the end I tried a qualifying tyre which was very good; I improved my time quite a lot. I’m really happy with the team’s work and now we’re waiting for the next test so we can continue improving.”

David Brivio (Team Manager)

“This has been a very positive test and it’s clear that Yamaha have worked very hard during the winter, so I would like to say a big thank you to all the engineers. To everyone involved now it looks like we’re on our way to fixing some of the issues and weak points which we had last year and we hope that at every test we will be able to make the same amount of progress. Valentino’s level is already high but it’s only the first test after the long winter break and so I am sure he will continue to improve as well. Now we look forward to coming back in ten days time to continue our programme.”