Gauloises Yamaha Team Test Jerez de la Frontera, Spain Monday 11th April 2005 GAULOISES YAMAHA TEAM BACK AT WORK FOR SHORT TEST FOLLOWING OPENING VICTORY Less than 24 hours after his stunning win in the first Grand Prix of the season, Valentino Rossi was back out on the Jerez circuit alongside his Yamaha team-mate Colin Edwards, who finished a battling ninth yesterday in his first race for Yamaha in MotoGP. The two riders and their crews made use of the good weather to complete a half-day of testing and were joined on the track by Fortuna Yamaha riders Toni Elias and Ruben Xaus, as well as one rider from each of the Kawasaki and Ducati teams. The Gauloises Yamaha Team spent the afternoon trying some new tyres for Michelin, working on engine mapping and making small adjustments to the settings on Rossi and Edwards’ 2005 prototype YZR-M1s. Edwards was the fastest man on the track out of the six riders, setting a best time of 1’40.98 from 52 laps, over a half-second’s improvement on the best lap of 1’41.596 that he set in yesterday’s race. Rossi was next fastest with a best lap of 1’41.00 after 41 laps, just ahead of Ducati rider Carlos Checa, who set a fastest lap of 1’41.01. The team now moves on to Portugal for the second race of the year, which takes place in Estoril next Sunday, 17th April. COLIN EDWARDS (1’40.98, 52 laps) “After this test we basically understand what happened yesterday and where we’ve been going wrong lately. Once we had worked out the problem, the lap times came easily and I was lapping consistently in the 1’41s all afternoon. My best lap was on a race tyre. It’s frustrating because we really could have done with knowing this before the weekend! I tried two tyres for Michelin and worked a bit on mapping, but mostly we were just getting the settings and geometry back to where we wanted it. I really needed this after not such a great race yesterday and it’s left me feeling much more positive about Estoril. I hope we can put today’s work to good use there.” VALENTINO ROSSI (1’41.00, 41 laps) “I am happy because this was a positive test; although it was very short, it was worthwhile. We worked on some settings on the suspension to try to find more feeling with the bike, and we made some good progress. We also looked at the engine mapping to try to find a way to make the bike smoother during acceleration, which is of course very important. We tried some new tyres from Michelin to improve the performance of the bike and they were not so bad. We didn’t change anything big from the weekend, this was really just a test to play with some small but very important details, and we have learnt quite a lot. Now I am ready for a short rest before we start again on Friday in Portugal for round two of the Championship.” DAVIDE BRIVIO ROSSI’S CREW CHIEF “This was a good test. The target was to go through the problems that arose during the weekend and it was definitely worthwhile; we made steps forward with both riders. Now we hope to be able to use this to our benefit during the next weekend in Portugal.” UNOFFICIAL LAP TIMES: 1. COLIN EDWARDS (Gauloises Yamaha Team) 1’40.98, 52 laps 2. VALENTINO ROSSI (Gauloises Yamaha Team) 1’41.00, 41 laps 3. Carlos Checa (Ducati Marlboro Team) 1’41.01, 54 laps 4. Toni Elias (Fortuna Yamaha Team) 1’41.90, 63 laps 5. Shinya Nakano (Kawasaki Racing Team) 1’42.00, 46 laps 6. Ruben Xaus (Fortuna Yamaha Team) 1.42.80, 73 laps