Factory Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi has overcome the problems he and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo were suffering with the 2014 spec of Bridgestone tyres to share the equal overall fatest time at the end of Sepang testing.

The Doctor went a full second faster than he did at the same time last year and was only a tenth slower than at the previous test where everyone was faster.

Rossi shared the top of the timesheet with Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa who equalled the 1’59.999 set by Rossi in the morning with his last run of laps at the end of the day.

“First of all I am very happy because I am in first position and I did a good lap. It’s positive because the 2014 tyres in the first test here we were a second slower in the time attack compared with today,” said Rossi.

“Also in this test we are always at the top, there to fight for the first position. We still have some problems, especially when it is hot on the longer distance with the new tyres, we still have to work but we do a good step from the first test and now it will be very important at Phillip Island to understand if we improve a lot there like here. I am more than one second faster compared to the second test here last year so it mean that we work well.”