Rossi Fast on Day Two in Jerez

[totalmotorcycle]

Rossi Fast on Day Two in Jerez
Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - Yamaha Racing Press Release



Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards completed another promising day of development work on Yamaha’s new 800cc motorcycle in Jerez today, despite being forced to sit out the morning session whilst they waited for the track to dry following yesterday’s rain. Once they got going after lunch however the riders made the most of the time available, getting through a host of work on the prototype bike and focusing mainly on tyre testing with Michelin and chassis work.

Rossi topped the time sheets for the second day running and put in a best lap of 1’40.688 after 82 laps, the most of any rider today. His time was less than a tenth of a second off the current lap record, which was set by him in 2005. Honda rider Dani Pedrosa was second quickest with a fastest time of 1’40.799 while Edwards was third once again, recording a best time of 1’41.186 after a total of 48 laps. Tomorrow will be the final day of testing for the Camel Yamaha Team before they break for the winter holidays.

VALENTINO ROSSI (1st – 1’40.688, 82 laps)

“I did a lot of laps today, the most of all the riders so it was quite a tough day despite missing the morning! We had to make up for the time we missed yesterday too and everyone worked very hard to get through all the work we had. It was a good day and helpful for us to have time to do so many laps. We continued working with two different chassis, trying to find the best way forward and check the differences between them. We also got time to do some important tyre work with Michelin and it seems they have some good new things which are working well with our bike. I hope that the weather will stay like this tomorrow because we’ve still got quite a lot we want to do before the end of the test. We’ll continue with the work we did today, check and confirm everything and then I hope we can finish for the year feeling positive!”

COLIN EDWARDS (3rd – 1’41.186, 48 Laps)

“We got here this morning and the track was still seriously wet from yesterday so we had to sit around for a while to wait for it to dry out. The afternoon was good though and we spent a large part of it testing front tyres for Michelin, following on from where we got to in Malaysia. We wanted to re-confirm that what we tried in Sepang is the right way to go and it’s definitely working well here too so we’re going in the right direction. We tried various different fronts and I’m pretty happy with the situation. We didn’t try anything special on the rear, just kept a standard test tyre in, but we still put in some good times so that’s encouraging. We played about with some new engine mapping and then got some chassis work done at the end of the day. In the end we tried a setting more or less identical to Valentino's, just to compare, and I could ride well with that too. It seems we’ve both found different settings that are working well so it’s just going to be a case of seeing what works best at each track. I’m pretty happy, we’re making progress and things are looking good so far.”

Unofficial Lap Times

1. VALENTINO ROSSI (ITA) Yamaha, 1’40.688

2. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Honda, 1’40.799

3. COLIN EDWARDS (USA) Yamaha, 1’41.186

4. John Hopkins (USA) Suzuki, 1’41.205

5. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Suzuki, 1’41.619

6. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati, 1’41.702

7. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Ducati, 1’42.244

8. Marco Melandri (ITA) Honda, 1’42.469

9. Shinya Nakano (JPN) Honda, 1’42.528

10. Alex Barros (BRA) Ducati, 1’43.182

11. Tadayuki Okada (JPN) Honda Test Rider, 1’42.316

12. Vittorio Guareschi (ITA) Ducati Test Rider, 1’44.449

13. Jeremy McWilliams (GBR) Ilmor, 1’45.265

14. Andrew Pitt (AUS) Ilmor, 1’47.110