After claiming an important 20 points in yesterday's Grand Prix of Catalunya, Valentino Rossi and his crew were back at work today for a half day test at the Montmelo circuit. Rossi shared the track with the large majority of the MotoGP grid, although his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was still absent as he continues his recovery from Friday's crash.
Having experienced some set-up problems during the weekend, the team concentrated largely on working through those issues during today's test and improving their package with Donington in mind. As usual there were also plenty of tyres to test with Bridgestone and Rossi set his best lap of 1'41.857 on a qualifying tyre, a time considerably better than his time from Saturday's official qualifying session. The Italian completed 61 laps and set the second fastest time of the day, behind Casey Stoner.
Next stop for the team is Donington Park in the UK for the British Grand Prix on 22nd June.
Davide Brivio - Team manager "Once again we've had a very positive day's testing, and it's been good to have the time to work through some of the problems we had at the weekend in order to completely understand what happened. We mainly worked on setting and tyres and, together with Bridgestone, we got some good information that we are sure will help us over the next two races. With qualifying tyres we were able to improve our time from Saturday, so this is also a good outcome. Finally we also worked on our starts, in order to try to improve the beginning of the race for us. We are satisfied with the day's work and now we're looking forward to the next races."
Ambient temperature: 25 degrees
Track temperature: 40 degrees
Humidity: 35%
Test Times:1. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro 1'41.533
2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1'41.8573. Shinya Nakano (JPN) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'42.039
4. James Toseland (GBR) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'42.505
5. Alex De Angelis (RSM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1'42.699
6. Nicky Hayden (USA) Repsol Honda 1'42.721
7. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Alice Team 1'42.755
8. Randy De Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1'42.775
9. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Rizla Suzuki 1'42.782
10. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) JiR Team Scot MotoGP 1'42.818
11. Colin Edwards (USA) Tech 3 Yamaha 1'43.127
12. Toni Elias (SPA) Alice Team 1'43.197
13. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda 1'43.552
14. John Hopkins (USA) Kawasaki Racing 1'43.630
15. Marco Melandri (ITA) Ducati Marlboro 1'44.326
Montmelo': Record Lap: D. Pedrosa (Honda) 2008, 1'42.358
Best Lap: C. Stoner (Ducati) 2008, 1'41.186
