Following another success event for Valentino Rossi in Sunday’s Cardion AB Czech Republic Grand Prix, this has placed him in an excellent position in this year's championship and the present Fiat Yamaha team is the strongest so far, however in Monday’s post-competition test, the Italian hero and his staff were planning ahead to next season.

Six-time premier division World Champion Rossi claimed his first opportunity to test prototype developments for next year, testing out a fresh chassis and a new motor specification, placing his best time of the day just prior to the end of the afternoon event, which was detered by the wet weather.

Rossi’s best lap of 1’56.622, was below the fresh lap record engaged by his colleague Jorge Lorenzo in Sunday’s event, but was however the second best lap time of the test, 0.451s after Lorenzo’s top test lap.

Rossi explains, “We had some important work to do as we were testing a 2010 spec engine which is more resistant and should be able to do more kilometers. We also tested the first prototype of the 2010 chassis, but I did just 20 laps in the morning.”

“Unfortunately it rained in the lunch break and so we couldn’t ride for a lot of the afternoon because of the wet rack, but it dried enough for us to do some more work at the end. This time we could really concentrate on doing a proper job testing the chassis and the new engine specification, and I was quite fast.”

Team boss Davide Brivio adds, “We got a lot done and we were able to collect a lot of data about the new chassis and engine spec, which will help the engineers back in Japan with their development for the future and next year’s bike. We also tried some electronic mapping and it was a very useful day for us. We’re now approaching the final stage of the championship and we can’t relax because our rivals are strong, so now everyone can have a well-deserved rest and then we’ll be ready for anything in Indianapolis!”