After illness on Day 1 and a much improved Day 2, nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi had a good final day in Sepang at the first test of 2017 – finishing the day locking out the top five. A new fairing on Tuesday with “internal winglets” proved a big talking point of the test, and although the Italian was undecided as to its benefits, Day 3 saw the rider from Tavullia find something of interest ahead of the next test at Phillip Island in two weeks.
Rossi did a 1:59.589 for his P5, and completed 62 laps on the third and final day in Malaysia.
VR46, P5: “I'm quite happy, it was a good test, because my lap times were OK and 1'59.589 is not so bad and we are all very close at the top. In general, the feeling with the bike is positive and today we also found something interesting to further improve the bike. At the end it was a challenging test but we found something positive.”