Rain halts testing

Colin Edwards’ first chance to try out Yamaha’s 800cc MotoGP bike was cut short by rain on Wednesday.

The American was testing the new bike for the first time at Sepang before torrential rain ended the session, flooding parts of the track.

Click here to see GP reporter Matthew Birt’s exclusive video report

Edward managed to complete 32 laps of the Malaysian circuit, forming an initial positive vibe about the new machine and setting the fastest time of the day at 2’03.56.
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He said: “The weather has been a pain but actually we’d already accomplished more or less everything we wanted for the first day. The aim of today was to get on the new bike, do a few laps and just generally get a feel for it.

“Obviously power-wise it feels different, but other than that it just feels like it’s rounded-off a bit; not such a knife-edge and a little bit more forgiving. We didn’t change anything drastic from the set-up that Valentino’s been running, but just made a few tweaks here and there through the morning to get things working better for me.

Click here to see GP reporter Matthew Birt’s exclusive video report

Unofficial Lap Times (800cc Bikes)

1. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha, 2’03.56

2. Chris Vermeulen (AUS) Suzuki, 2’03.90

3. John Hopkins (USA) Suzuki, 2’04.06

4. Nicky Hayden (USA) Honda, 2’04.69

5. Toni Elias (SPA) Honda, 2’04.98

6. Makoto Tamada (JPN) Yamaha, 2’05.11

7. Tadayuki Okada (JPN) Honda Test Rider, 2’05.90

8. Carlos Checa (SPA) Honda, 2’11.05