Fiat Yamaha colleagues Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, enjoyed a three day visit to Indonesia, a country with a main market for Yamaha. Rossi arrived immediately after testing in Malaysia last week, while Lorenzo came from Spain where he has been recovering following an injury to his hand.

Rossi visited Medan initially which is Indonesia's third biggest city, he was involved in a press conference with Yamaha Motor Indonesia's upper management. The press conference launched the ‘Semakin di Depan' program sponsorship, which will enable Yamaha Motor Indonesia's ‘One Step Ahead' motto to be carried out on the YZR-M1, plus the competitors' leathers this year.

Rossi then arrived at ‘PT.Alfa Scorpii', Indonesia's second biggest Yamaha Dealer, for the opening of its fresh showroom, also there were over 400 clients and media. Following the voyage to Medan, the World Hero arrived at Surabaya, Indonesia's second biggest city.  He greeted PT. Surya Timur Sakti Jatim, Indonesia's Yamaha Main Dealer.  Eventually he also visited the DBL Arena to liaise with approximately 4,000 Yamaha clients.

Lorenzo arrived to Indonesia's ‘Flower City' Bandung, where he participated in a press conference to launch the ‘Semakin di Depan' sponsorship. He also excelled in a warm welcoming at an exclusive fan meeting where he signed many autographs and liaised with local media. Following, he visited Jogjakarta, the place where traditional Indonesian art of batik is used, and met more Yamaha clients there along with enjoying some outdoor activities at the malls in Jogjakarta.

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The end of the second testing at Sepang allowed Valentino Rossi to be at the top of the timesheet yet again, this time the Doctor was quicker than his own pole position record he set at the track in 2009 at the Shell Advance Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix.

A super quick lap of 2’00.271 was nearly three tenths of a second faster, as Rossi worked on the last day testing his electric packages, a fresh wheel for Bridgestone, and assessing the overall modifications so far on the M1.

“I'm really happy to have beaten my pole record, it's a good feeling to be this fast in testing,” says Rossi. “I did this with an old tyre but we also got the chance to try a very good new tyre from Bridgestone today, which I hope we will use from the first race. Our bike is in great shape; we need to do a bit more work on the electronics but in general everything is better, especially the rear grip and the engine. Yamaha have been very clever in developing this new bike whilst keeping the best parts of the old one.”

Rossi also rode a couple of laps on the Yamaha test squad’s bike, proving valuable data for future development of the M1,  he is now excited about the last pre-season testing in Qatar beginning March 18th.

“It was good to get the chance to try the Japanese test bike, hopefully the feedback I gave them will help us in the future,” adds Rossi.

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