GAULOISES YAMAHA TEAM SEPANG TEST
Sepang, Malaysia
Sunday, January 23rd, 2005

Ambient temperature: 34 degrees
Track temperature: 52 degrees
Humidity: 37%

GAULOISES YAMAHA TEMA RIDERS START 2005 WITH A BUSY DAY IN SEPANG

Reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi and his new Yamaha team-mate Colin
Edwards began their 2005 MotoGP campaign today with day one of a three-day test
in Sepang, Malaysia.  The two riders climbed on board their new 2005
specification YZR-M1s this morning for the first time this year, having enjoyed
a seven-week winter holiday since the last test in November.

Sharing the track with the Fortuna Yamaha Team as well as teams from Honda,
Ducati, Kawasaki and Suzuki, the Gauloises Yamaha Team quickly got back into the
swing of things and spent the day working on setting-up the new bikes.  Rossi
completed a total of 47 laps and recorded a fastest time of 2'02.30, the second
quickest lap of the day behind Ducati man Loris Capirossi (2'02.18).  His Texan
team-mate Edwards, who has already tested twice with the team despite not
becoming an official Yamaha rider until 1st January this year, completed 55 laps
with a best time of 2'03.08, fifth fastest overall of the 17 MotoGP riders
testing in Sepang.

Valentino Rossi, (2'02.30)

Today was not too bad, for the first day back!  We spent the day working on
settings, and for sure we know that this new bike is a good bike.  There is some
improvement to the engine and now the aim is to make some more changes and to
try to get the same feeling as we had with last year's bike, so I can ride it in
the same way.  This bike is almost completely new, plus I haven't ridden for two
months, so there is a lot of work to do and we will continue tomorrow.

Colin Edwards (2'03.08)

I'm pretty happy after this first day and it's awesome to be back.  We spent all
day changing settings and just working on various small things to try to improve
the set-up.  The Japanese need quite a lot of information to build their
database, so we spent some time doing things for them, too.  We didn't test any
tyres, as we wanted to just concentrate on set-up, but tomorrow we might spend
some more time with different Michelin tyres.  We've got a new engine, a new
chassis and there's a lot to work on; some areas have improved for me and some
haven't, but we just need to find the balance and we'll be okay.

Davide Brivio, Gauloises Yamaha Team Director

In November we tested a prototype bike and we've come here today with the final
2005 machine.  The work we did today was just normal work to fine-tune the
settings.  We've got 18 full days of testing planned before the start of the
season, so we have plenty of time to work on all the issues and hopefully find a
good solution for any difficulties.  Today we have only just started.

LAP TIMES:

 1. Loris Capirossi (Ducati)  2'02.18
 2. VALENTINO ROSSI (YAMAHA)  2'02.30
 3. Alex Barros (Honda)       2'02.71
 4. Kenny Roberts (Suzuki)    2'03.00
 5. COLIN EDWARDS (YAMAHA)    2'03.08