MotoGP news

Rossi sets second day pace

World Champion Valentino Rossi set the fastest time in Jerez today on the final day of testing for the year. His Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was third fastest, making it a successful concluding test for the year's leading team.

Rossi spent most of his time today on the new 2009-prototype M1, working on developing the setting and also trying out some new parts for the engine, amongst other things. He set his best time of the day on his 52nd of 54 laps, dipping nearly seven tenths of a second under the lap record with a time of 1'39.429.

The Italian and his team will now have two months to recover from a hard season while the MotoGP testing ban is in force. The next on-track action will be at Sepang in Malaysia on 5th, 6th and 7th February 2009.

"The track was a bit drier today and so we were able to improve even more and do a great job," said Rossi. "We worked a lot on the new bike and tried some different parts to yesterday, including for the engine and we were quite fast. It seems we're going in the right direction with this new bike and I am happy about this. I hope that the information we have gathered here will help the engineers to improve the bike and I look forward to the next evolution in Sepang. I think these first tests with the one-tyre rule have been quite positive and Bridgestone have done a good job so far, although for sure they will have a difficult job to decide which tyre for which track. Anyway, I hope that we will have some exciting battles next year with everyone at the same level with their tyres. Now I am looking forward to some holidays and next week I will go to Wales for the rally, which I hope will be a lot of fun. It's been a fantastic year and I am really happy I have finished at the top today, it's not a big thing but it gives a good feeling to me and all the team and means we can enjoy our holidays confident that we are in good shape!"

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