Reigning MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi has declared himself happy with his performance at the Sepang tests, even with his minor injuries, and is looking forward to going to the first race in a strong position.

The Fiat Yamaha rider has one set of tests left at the Doha track before the opening MotoGP round at the desert circuit but is very upbeat as his YZR-M1 wasn't ready before the same race last season.

The first test of the year is always difficult, even if you trained a lot in the winter, so I am happy! Qatar will be interesting, because last year we weren’t strong there, but then last year the bike was not yet ready when we went to the first race in Doha," said The Doctor.

"I am really looking forward to the next text there. I am leaving this place feeling happy, because we’ve made a good start. Everything went well: my pain is less, the bike is good and I am feeling better and better. We finished everything we wanted to do on the bike and the setting and the rhythm is quite good.

"The lap time is fast so we have made a good start. We didn’t do the long run, but actually we didn’t need to. Without my injury maybe it would have been possible, but in this situation we decided to leave it. My injuries are getting better each day because they’re only cuts and they’re healing fast. I don't think that they made much difference to my speed here and by the Qatar test I will be back in perfect shape.

"I did the fastest lap today with the hard Bridgestone tyre, so it means that the bike is good. For sure we need to improve some more but since this year we have less testing, this performance has been very important."