Rossi continues to dominate testing

The world champion has now been fastest on all four winter test days to date - all of which have taken place at Sepang - and his 2m00.271s lap today was 0.8s quicker than he had managed yesterday.

With Rossi's team-mate Jorge Lorenzo sidelined by a hand injury at present, Casey Stoner was unsurprisingly his main rival. The Ducati rider was only 0.3s off Rossi's pace, while Stoner's team-mate Nicky Hayden took a hugely encouraging third.

The American struggled to match Stoner last year and was hampered by pain from recent arm surgery on Thursday, but today he was only 0.191s behind his team-mate and clearly revelling in Ducati's latest swingarm and engine developments.

Tech 3 Yamaha's strong test form continued with fourth and fifth places for Colin Edwards and top rookie Ben Spies, while the factory Hondas of Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa were back in seventh and eighth, behind Suzuki's Loris Capirossi.

250cc champion Hiroshi Aoyama showed his best form yet for the new Interwetten Honda team to take ninth, just ahead of fellow rookie Alvaro Bautista - the Suzuki rider in some discomfort having hurt his arm in a crash yesterday.

But it was a bad day for another 250cc graduate, as Marco Simoncelli (Gresini Honda) had a heavy fall on his third lap. He was taken to hospital as a precaution but returned to the track later in the day, although he was unable to resume running.

The final MotoGP test of the winter will take place at Losail in Qatar on 17-19 March, with the season opener at the same venue on 12 April.

Pos  Rider             Team               Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha             2m00.271s            39
 2.  Casey Stoner      Ducati             2m00.512s  + 0.241s  33
 3.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati             2m00.703s  + 0.432s  42
 4.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha      2m00.988s  + 0.717s  35
 5.  Ben Spies         Tech 3 Yamaha      2m01.014s  + 0.743s  44
 6.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki             2m01.320s  + 1.049s  50
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda              2m01.439s  + 1.168s  46
 8.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda              2m01.478s  + 1.207s  57
 9.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Interwetten Honda  2m01.692s  + 1.421s  50
10.  Alvaro Bautista   Suzuki             2m01.732s  + 1.461s  25
11.  Randy De Puniet   LCR Honda          2m01.980s  + 1.709s  58
12.  Marco Melandri    Gresini Honda      2m02.078s  + 1.807s  60
13.  Hector Barbera    Aspar Ducati       2m02.080s  + 1.809s  52
14.  Mika Kallio       Pramac Ducati      2m02.082s  + 1.811s  66
15.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati      2m02.367s  + 2.096s  49
16.  Marco Simoncelli  Gresini Honda      2m03.689s  + 3.418s  2