Rossi: I wish the season started in two weeks

After one last ride on the 990cc Yamaha, to try and understand Sunday's shock title defeat, Valentino Rossi turned his attention to the new 800cc machine with which he aims to reclaim his MotoGP crown.

The five times premier-class champion fell on lap five of the final race of the 990cc era on Sunday, destroying his eight point lead and handing the title to Nicky Hayden, but just three days later Rossi and his main rivals were back at Valencia for the first post-season test of the 'off-season'.

"It was really good to have two days to rest after such a sad day on Sunday and I'm already feeling much better, in fact I wish the season started in two weeks time!" claimed the Italian. "We actually started off the test by doing some laps on the old 990cc bike as we wanted to have one more go at understanding why we lost! Then it was time to finally put it all behind us and get on with the new campaign."

Having only ridden the 800cc Yamaha briefly on two previous occasions, the Valencia test was the first real chance for Rossi and his mechanics to assess the machine in detail and begin serious development work - whilst comparing its speed with rival 800cc machines from Honda, Ducati, Suzuki and Ilmor.

"It's been great to be able to try the new bike straight away, when the 990 is still fresh in my mind, as it's easy to compare and understand the differences," explained Rossi. "Our bike is already quite good; it's at a good level for this early stage of development. This is the third time I've ridden it and it's got better each time because they've been working hard in Japan. They haven't made so many big changes yet, just small things like the engine setting, but already it's a bit faster."

After his early 990cc laps, Rossi went on to put the new Yamaha at the top of the 800cc timesheets on day one by just 0.01secs from Ducati's Loris Capirossi - with the top Suzuki and Honda 800 all within 0.1secs of the #46! However, day two saw Rossi relax his pace, while experimenting with 'different things', and he was left seventh fastest and 1.12secs behind fastest man Dani Pedrosa.

"Yesterday we were fastest, which was exciting, but today we've been trying some different things and we were quite a lot slower," admitted Rossi at the end of the test. "Anyway I'm not worried about that, the most important thing at the moment is to get as much information as possible and really start to understand and get to know the bike. This has been a useful test, I'm already feeling very motivated about the new bike and I am sure that next time I ride it in Jerez it will be even better!"