As Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo are together inside the top three at the initial testing of 2010 in Malaysia, it was a glorious outing for the Fiat Yamaha squad.

Rossi was the sole racer of all 17 participants to achieve below the 2’01” mark, he claimed a time of 2’00.925 on Friday, while Lorenzo’s time of 2’01.680 has ensured him as third quickest following Ducati’s Casey Stoner.

Rossi left the garage in the afternoon on Friday as wet conditions in the morning created the circuit to not dry out until midday, when he did arrive the Doctor finished 32 laps on his YZR-M1 prototype, only half a second slower than his record pole spot set at the track last season.

“After yesterday this second day has been very good as well, even though we lost a few hours to the rain, and by the end we were still able to finish all our work,” explains Rossi. “We worked on the new bike to find a better setting and I was happy to be the fastest overall - even though this is just testing this is important for me!”

“At the next test we will have a few more new things but we’re already happy because we’re fast and strong. There is room to improve of course; Sepang is always a good track for the Yamaha so we will have to wait until Qatar to get a better understanding of our level, but we have made a great start.”

Lorenzo began his work later in the morning however ended the majority of his 60 laps after midday. A massive improvement on his Thursday time, plus a confident feeling with the fresh M1, were good results for the Spaniard.

“I felt much better today and I was able to be fast straight away,” he states. “It wasn’t a big problem yesterday, it’s just that after such a long break I forgot how to ride a little bit! I need a bit of time, but it was much better today. I’m happy about my performance and about my feeling with the new bike. Yamaha have made good improvements without changing the best parts of the bike and this is the best way. They have made some good modifications to the chassis and the engine and this has already improved our pace.”

Lorenzo adds: “We don’t have many days on the bike until the start of the season so we will make the most of the time here next month to continue our good work.”