Lorenzo out on track in Yamaha colours for first time

Daniele Romagnoli: "The main area we need to work on is the hard braking areas, where we still have some vibration"

© Fiat Yamaha Team. It was an interesting day for the Michelin-shod 20-year-old, who completed some promising work despite an incident at turn 13, when he lost the front and slid into the gravel. Like his team-mate Valentino Rossi, who suffered a similar fate, Lorenzo was entirely unhurt and was back out on his second bike almost immediately. He completed 43 laps on a scorching Sepang day, trying out a new 2008-specification engine and also some new electronics, registering improvements with both.

© Fiat Yamaha Team. The Michelin rider stayed on base tyres today and will begin tyre-testing tomorrow as he continues in his task of getting to grips with his new YZR-M1. His time of 2'02.563 was good enough for ninth place while team-mate Rossi was just above him in sixth, with a time of 2'02.490. Randy de Puniet was fastest today after recording a lap of 2'01.377.

"Unfortunately I lost the front and crashed at turn 13 but it wasn't a big fall and I wasn't hurt at all," said Jorge Lorenzo. "I went back to the pits and went out on my other bike, forgot about the problem and started improving straight away! In this way it was a positive day for me. We had the chance to test a new engine, with which I found to be an improvement compared to the previous one, and we also worked on some new electronics. I still need to improve some things about my riding style, and we need to work on the bike in the hard braking areas because I am lacking some stability there. Today we didn't change anything with the tyres but tomorrow we will start some tyre testing with Michelin."

© Fiat Yamaha Team. Daniele Romagnoli, team manager, added: "Luckily Jorge wasn't hurt so despite his crash it was a good day's work for us. We continued with the base set-up we had in Jerez, where he was quite fast, and it seems to work okay. The main area we need to work on is the hard braking areas, where we still have some vibration, so we need to concentrate on improving the bike for those parts of the track. We tried a new-specification engine and some new electronics and Jorge felt very comfortable with these. Tomorrow we will continue with general set-up work and also start testing new tyres with Michelin; we have a lot to do but so far things are going quite well."

Lap Times:

1. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda) 2:01.377
2. Dani PEDROSA (Honda) 2:01.864
3. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki) 2:02.074
4. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki) 2:02.416
5. Casey STONER (Ducati) 2:02.457
6. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha) 2:02.490
7. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha) 2:02.549
8. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda) 2:02.558
9. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha) 2:02.563
10. Shinya NAKANO (Honda) 2:02.622
11. John HOPKINS (Kawasaki) 2:02.628
12. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda) 2:02.783
13. James TOSELAND (Yamaha) 2:03.264
14. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda) 2:03.301
15. Anthony WEST (Kawasaki) 2:03.387
16. Olivier JACQUE (Kawasaki) 2:03.863
17. Toni ELIAS (Ducati) 2:03.954
18. Marco MELANDRI (Ducati) 2:04.414
19. Niccolo CANEPA (Ducati) 2:05.580
20. Sylvain GUINTOLI (Ducati) 2:06.000
21. Tamaki SERIZAWA (Kawasaki) 2:23.590