Rossi happy despite gap to front

As MotoGP testing got back to action in Malaysia, Rossi finished the opening day of work in ninth position with his Ducati.

The Italian admitted his shoulder injury is still hindering him and, considering he did not go for a late flying lap, Rossi was happy with his bike's speed.

"We can be satisfied with today as a first day, because we're a second from the top, like we were at the end of the first test but without trying a late 'time attack' with the soft tyre like the others did," said Rossi. "For the most part today, I was between fifth and sixth place, which is the goal we had set.

"I'm still losing about three tenths due to the shoulder, because I'm still stronger in the left turns, whereas I'm normally the opposite; the rest we'll have to find by working on the bike.

"I'm also happy because we spent all our time on the hard tyres, which we struggled with before today. In the end, we chose one of the two set-ups that we had settled upon at the last test, and that will now be our base to work from, and the one on which we'll concentrate our efforts in the next couple of days."

Team-mate Nicky Hayden, 12th quickest in today's session, was also happy with his day's work despite a crash during the morning.

"Everything pretty much went according to schedule, except I had a little crash in Turn 1 toward the end of the morning session. It was really hot, and I lost the front and tipped over, but I was going slow and didn't do any damage to myself or the bike.

"Today we experienced less chatter than we had last time, so that's quite good. We need to keep reducing that over the next two days and also find some more traction, so we've got plenty to keep us busy."