From a press release issued by Yamaha Racing:

YAMAHA FACTORY RACING TESTS
Phillip Island, Australia
Tuesday, March 9, 2004

FIRST DAY OF YAMAHA TEST MARRED BY BAD WEATHER AT PHILLIP ISLAND

With their feet having hardly touched European ground the Yamaha MotoGP teams were back at the Phillip Island circuit in Australia today for a three day test, having left the antipodean venue just over two weeks ago. The first day was unfortunately a wash-out for most of the morning, with glimpses of sunshine during the early afternoon drying the track enough for the four Yamaha riders to put in some worthwhile laps.

Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha riders Valentino Rossi and Carlos Checa put in a small number of laps this afternoon, the former claiming a meritable 1:32.10 in a total of just 14 laps, the latter using his track time to alter his basic seat set-up with a best time of 1:34.30 and 22 laps.

Fortuna Gauloises Tech 3 riders Marco Melandri and Norick Abe put in times of 1:34.34 and 1:35.27 respectively after producing slightly more laps out on track. Melandri was ready to try some chassis modifications today but he decided to wait until day two with the hope of better weather, today focusing on throttle connection and testing in the wet.

Valentino Rossi (Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha) 14 laps, 1:32.10

“We’ve been so lucky with the weather! I couldn’t do so much today because of the terrible rain but I did manage to make some laps towards the end of the day. I’m continuing with the same engine spec as last time we were here, and it’s still quite good but I wasn’t able to try it so much today. Before we came here I visited the F1 Grand Prix in Melbourne, which was a great show. It was my first time at an F1 race, and was good to meet the drivers, the mechanics, and quite surprising how passionate everyone is about MotoGP.”

Carlos Checa (Gauloises Fortuna Yamaha) 22 laps, 1:34.40

“There’s not a lot to say really. I did a few laps and I changed the seat position but basically it was a bit of a waste of a day for me. Tomorrow we will start with what we were planning to do today, and work on the bike general set-up and tyres.”

Marco Melandri (Fortuna Gauloises Tech 3) 49 laps, 1:34.34

“It was good to get a few laps around this circuit in the wet, it helps me understand the bike more, but the problem is when it’s neither wet nor dry. When it’s patchy, like it was for most of the day, it’s impossible to achieve anything so we basically lost half a day. When the track was finally dry it was dirty and the wind made it rather tricky. We did manage to test a few things, however, especially the throttle connection and the drivability off the turns. We still need to do more, but we need the weather to improve a little. If it improves then we will focus on some tyre testing and an endurance run.”

Norick Abe (Fortuna Gauloises Tech 3) 35 laps, 1:35.27

“It was such a shame to come all the way here and have rain. We could have had rain in Europe, but that is ok because tomorrow looks like it should be much better. We still used the day as much as we could to tune in the engine braking. It’s still an area that I’m having the most trouble with and I want to improve the feel I have entering the turns. Tomorrow morning we will finalise this and then focus on the suspension. I want to find a base chassis set-up that works at all tracks so that when it comes time to qualify during a race weekend I only need to make slight changes to the suspension.”