Rossi leads at Sepang

Italian Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi has been dominating proceedings at the MotoGP tests at Sepang, sounding more positive than the end of last year, when he announced the team had a lot of work to do.

The 29-year-old has been lapping at under lap record pace and was dominating the first two days of testing.

His closest challenger was Nicky Hayden, who was half a second in arrears on the Repsol Honda. Hayden also ran second to Stoner's Ducati at Phillip Island the previous week, with a one-second deficit.

Valentino Rossi: "Today was another very good day and I had a good pace and rhythm all day. We tested some different Bridgestone tyres before again trying the one I prefer, which confirmed that this is the best one for us and so we will use it for the long run tomorrow. We worked a little bit on the suspension and also on the electronic mapping and we also tried a lot of practice starts, maybe as many as ten, and we need to improve a bit in this area. I also tried a new cowling which is aimed at improving the cooling system and this had a good result. Finally I tried a qualifying tyre again and, although I made a small mistake on my lap because I was quite tired by then, it was again very positive."

The team planned to spend the third day doing race-length runs.