From a press release issued by Yamaha:

YAMAHA FACTORY TEAM TESTS
Valencia, Spain
Friday December 6 2002

CONTENTED YAMAHA FACTORY TEAM COMPLETE FINAL DAY OF TESTING AT VALENCIA

Yamaha Factory Team riders Carlos Checa and his new team-mate Marco Melandri completed a three day test at Valencia Friday. The factory team continued their hard work on the Yamaha YZR-M1, winning machine of two Grands Prix in 2002.

Reigning 250 World Champion Melandri made his debut with Yamaha on the M1 which he rode methodically on all three days, today completing a total of 67 laps. Checa spent the first two days continuing development of Yamaha’s fuel injection system and today concentrated on Michelin tyre testing. Both riders were pleased with their performance in this penultimate test of the year despite windy conditions forcing all three Yamaha teams to finish early on the second day.

“This is the first test at the start of our new project”, said Team Director Davide Brivio. “It’s important for us to have both this and next week’s test in Jerez. Our target is for Carlos to give as much information as possible to our Yamaha and Michelin engineers before Christmas in order to start with the best possible advantage for testing in 2003. Now we are going to concentrate our winter testing in Europe in order to have immediate comparisons of bike and rider information from the same circuits in January.”

Checa was generally pleased with progress during the test, “The first day I found it quite difficult to get used to the bike again after not riding for one month,” said the Spaniard who finished this season fifth overall.

“Yesterday the weather was not so good but I tried to make use of the track time anyway. Today I am much happier and was able to give good input to my engineers about the fuel injection system. I also did a tyre test to give Michelin information about how they can improve the tyres even more for us. I found a good rhythm today and I’m content with the information I have provided.” Checa completed 72 laps today.

Now the Yamaha Factory Team will travel to Jerez in the south of Spain where they will continue testing from Monday 9 to Wednesday 11 December.

Lap times (from all 3 days)
CARLOS CHECA 1:33.71
MARCO MELANDRI 1:34.83

Alex Barros 1:34.0
Olivier Jacque 1:35.1
Shinya Nakano 1:34.2