A little track action from the first day of MotoGP Sepang testing that took place at the beginning of this month with Valentino Rossi coming out on top on both days.

For those of you who don’t know Italian and are interested, we’ve translated the two very brief interviews that Sportmediaset did with Valentino Rossi and disheveled rookie Marco Simoncelli.

VR: “Yes, the engine is the most important thing. Yamaha has worked very hard to try to have an engine that goes fast, but also at the same time that will also last a lot of kilometers according to the new rules, the first approach was positive because the bike is pretty fast, but we still have to work on it.”.

MS: “It wasn’t bad, I felt pretty good even if we’re still working to try the right set-up for the bike and understand the right geometry to go with.Yeah, I’m happy, both Aligi and I and the other guys of the crew are still learning and it’s important to work well.”

MotoGP testing will return to Sepang February 25-26th.

Continue reading: MotoGP Sepang Test: On track video

After the computer theft from the Aspar team garage that occured at Sepang, there was another small mystery in the paddock surrounding Ben Spies’ helmet.

The Texas Terror usually wears a HJC FC-15 lid, but on Thursday Spies was sporting on track an Arai RX-7 GP Colin Edwards Red helmet with the Arai logos blanked out.

The question is why was Elbowz wearing his teammate’s helmet? Did he forget his helmets at home, did the airline lose them, were they stolen like the Aspar computers? If anyone knows the answer to our question, please let us know, so we can rest easier.

Source | motoblog

Continue reading: Why was Ben Spies wearing Colin Edwards Helmet?

To accompany today’s riders quotes, we’ve got a batch of pics from today’s MotoGP test in Sepang, some official and some from Motoblog who has its own blogger who’s reporting directly from Malaysia.

Valentino Rossi - 1st 2′01″411 Laps: 54

“Today was very important because this year we have just six days of testing in which to set the bike, so we can not waste any time. This first day was very positive, we tried the new bike for 2010, with a different chassis and a new engine, which can do more kilometres, and it is quite fast. Yamaha has worked very well over the winter. Now we need to spend time on setting some electronics and other things. This is only the start but it seems we’re already in good shape.”

Casey Stoner - 2nd 2′01″902 Laps: 42 laps

“This first day was a bit difficult to understand: we started off with a setting that was quite good and that allowed us to make reasonably good lap times. We thought we would improve as the day went on but we had a few problems with chatter. We tried a lot of different combinations trying to make the bike feel a little bit better but we couldn’t really get an improvement. To be honest it was difficult to work out why because the track conditions were particularly difficult — it was so hot that it was actually hard to understand if you were make an improvement on the bike or not. In any case I’m really happy with the new engine, I think that with the other one we would have struggled more. Now the bike in general feel very good, very balanced and I’m happy with it. Hopefully the weather will be a little cooler tomorrow so that we can understand better if the changes we try are the right ones”.

Continue reading: MotoGP Sepang Test Thursday: Pics and Rider Quotes

We’ve got another video from the Fiat on the Web team with a Q&A session with Jorge Lorenzo.

Since we’re are a little wicked, we were wondering if one of Lorenzo’s answers: “Yes, I am happy to be with Valentino. I think that with no other riders I could learn more than with him.”” and after last year’s media dispute between the two riders regarding the exchange of data, if Lorenzo is still that happy with the Italian, now that Yamaha (more likely Rossi putting down both his feet) has decided there will be now be a limited amount of data sharing between the garages.

From Davide Brivio’s Q&A video:

In 2010 we will have small changes in this sense, compared to 2009 when the challenge was completely open during the weekend and during the practice. In consideration of the fact that the two riders are the main rivals for the championship, we have decided to respect this competition internally and to respect their own ways to race and to approach the competition, so during the weekend the two teams will be much more independent and the challenge will be closer. Not much information can be exchanged between the two teams. At YMC level, back at the office, the engineers can compare the data and the information, but the two teams inside the garage can work more independently from a technical point of view.

Continue reading: More from Yamaha: Jorge Lorenzo Q & A Interview

Under the new rules (dumb, because the riders are hanging around the track or at the pool of the Pan Pacific Hotel) the first day of testing held at Sepang, was for test riders only. The weather is typically Malaysian and as Jorge Lorenzo is reporting from his Twitter page ‘Que calor!’ (it’s hot) and tomorrow’s weather forecast predicts rain.

Test riders included Vittoriano Guareschi, who hung up his Team Manager persona momentarily, by spending five hours testing the Ducati Desmosedici GP10 and not only for the factory Ducati team, but he also gave a shakedown test on all the Ducati satellite team bikes, a total of 10 motorcycles!

Suzuki had on track Nobuatsu Aoki with the GSV-R, while Honda had Akiyoshi Kosuke on the new and revolutionary looking RC212V. Yamaha had two test riders, Yamaha Norihiko Fujiwara e Wataru Yoshikawa with the YZR-M1.

The official riders will take to the track on tomorrow and Friday to test their new bikes and Fiat Yamaha will also offically unveil its 2010 YZR-M1 tomorrow with pics, a series of press conferences and backstage videos by the Fiat on the Web team.

For photos from Sepang, check out our Italian cousins at Motoblog, here and here.

Continue reading: MotoGP Sepang Test: Wednesday - Test Riders Only