[theophil]

apparemment z'ont l'air tres content chez yam (et michelin)!!

MOTOGP News Monday, 6th February 2006

Rossi: It's always nice to be fastest, but...

After the excitement of his first 'public' Ferrari F1 test, MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi went back to his 'day job' in Qatar on Monday, as he began his second pre-season MotoGP test of 2006.

And it would be business as usual for the Italian as he put his Camel Yamaha on top of the eight-rider strong timesheet - despite all but team-mate Colin Edwards having had one day of testing under their belts yesterday (Sunday) - with The Doctor's best lap over half a second inside Nicky Hayden's fastest race lap from last October's GP.

However, although pleased to have put the new M1 back on top, Rossi was aware that his main championship rivals - from Honda and Ducati - aren't at this test, and that track conditions are also much better than they were for the GP.

"It's always nice to be fastest, although of course here we don't have Honda or Ducati," he confirmed. "Everything went very well today and I am pleased with this first day of work. As we're quite close to home I have no problem with jet-lag, unlike at Sepang, so I feel like I have plenty of energy for these three days!

"The temperature is about 15 degrees cooler than at the race last year and so we are able to have quite good grip and to use the tyres at 100%, enabling us to go quite fast," continued Rossi, who rode for 48 laps. "Anyway with the new bike we have much more grip than with the old M1, but as in Sepang we have a tiny bit of chatter, so we are doing a lot of work with Michelin to fix that.

"Michelin have come here with many new tyres and so we are working a lot with them to test as much as possible. The new bike is already at a good level and now we are working hard on finding the right settings for it. I'm looking forward to the next two days," he concluded.

Meanwhile, team-mate Edwards made it a factory Yamaha one-two by lapping just 0.16secs from Rossi – despite suffering from jet lag.

"Unlike Valentino I get pretty bad jet-lag here, coming from the US, so I felt pretty tired today!" admitted the Texan, who nonetheless completed 77 laps. "I hope to get a good night's sleep tonight and to have a bit more energy tomorrow. The track is getting cleaner by the minute as more rubber gets laid down, so the grip is improving all the time; it's already much better than in the race last year.

"Michelin have a lot of new tyres here so we're spending a large part of our time on testing the new stuff with them. I really like this track, I've always gone good from the first time I came here so it's an enjoyable place for me to test, plus the weather is great.

"The new bike really is better in every way and now I've just got to build my confidence with it. At the moment I am feeling stronger with every lap. It was a good first day and I was pleased to be able to get going so well so quickly," he declared.

Edwards' crew chief Daniele Romagnoli revealed that they had quickly adapted the new M1 to the Losail circuit, resulting in plenty of rider coinfidence.

"We very quickly found a good base-setting here today, much better than what we had at the race here last year," he said. "We've improved the front-end grip a lot and therefore Colin has much more confidence already in the front. It seems the new bike works well at this track and the lap times were good today. We made a good start."

Suzuki rider John Hopkins was closest to the Camel duo today, lapping 0.14secs from Edwards with his Bridgestone shod machine, while new Tech 3 Yamaha pilot Carlos Checa was fourth - despite having to end his day early due to a heavy fall.