Valentino Rossi admitted his first test day since the departure of crew chief Jeremy Burgess was an emotional occasion. The Italian called time on his partnership with Burgess on the eve of the Valencia Grand Prix with Silvano Galbusera brought in as his replacement and the pair started work together at the Ricardo Tormo circuit today.
Rossi was second fastest behind Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo and was happy with the way it panned out, despite the early trepidation.
“Today was very emotional, it was something different. We were working a long time with Jeremy so today was like a restart from the beginning but I’m happy and I’m satisfied with the day. I know Silvano already from Superbike as I did some testing in 2010 with the R1 together with him and I liked the way we worked. It’s just the first day but anyway it was a good day for me, I was faster and we worked well on the bike. The condition of the track and the weather were perfect so I enjoyed it a lot. We worked with both bikes, I liked the new one a lot, it has good power exit from the corners and the chassis gives a good feeling on the front so the first impression is very positive.”
Rossi and Lorenzo experimented with a 2014 development machine alongside the 2013-spec YZR-M1 which the Spaniard took to victory on Sunday and Lorenzo was pleased with the start made to their testing programme.
“We tried many small things today and some have been very positive so we are quite satisfied. I feel good and I feel in good shape. We were able to give good information to the engineers so everything is going well so far and we are looking forward to continuing tomorrow.”
