Rossi tops first day times at IRTA Catalunya test.

The first day of the two-day pre-season MotoGP test session at the 4.727km Circuit de Catalunya, got under way in bright sunshine providing the riders with almost ideal track conditions.

The entire MotoGP entry, Garry McCoy (Red Bull Yamaha) apart, were present at the test, the final European pre-season test before the teams move to Suzuka for the pre-race test session.

HRC team riders Valentino Rossi and Tohru Ukawa were in sparkling form at Catalunya today aboard their RC211V 5-cylinder Honda's, and it was Rossi who set the pace for his rivals to aim for. The reigning 500cc World Champion set a time of 1m 44.716s, almost two seconds inside his own lap record of 1m 46.619s.

Rossi's time was 0.643s faster than West Honda Pons NSR500 rider Loris Capirossi, in second place. The best two-stroke 500cc performance of the day. Spaniard Carlos Checa (M1 Marlboro Yamaha) was third fastest.

Capirossi's West Honda Pons teammate, Alex Barros, was fourth fastest. Ukawa, who has done the Lions share of RC211V testing to date, was next having spent a large part of the day testing tyres and suspension.

Fortuna Honda Gresini rider Daijiro Katoh, the reigning 250cc World Champion, ended the day in ninth place on the time sheet. The NSR500 rider has adapted well to the 190PS plus 500cc two-stroke machine he will campaign this season and spent the day testing tyre combinations and fine
tuning chassis settings.

Team Kanemoto continued their Bridgestone tyre testing programme at Catalunya with team rider Jurgen van den Goorbergh, and former GP rider Shinichi Itoh, who was brought to Catalunya to help with the hectic Bridgestone testing schedule.

Tetsuya Harada brought his Pramac NSR500 Honda to Catalunya, despite still suffering the after effects of a crash two weeks ago. The Japanese rider took things easy all day, preferring to learn what he could about the NSR500 he will race this year, his first season on a four-cylinder factory
machine.

The riders gave their take on how testing was going:

Valentino Rossi: 1min 44.716secs.
I'm quite happy about today, the bike is quite fast but we need more work on traction. This is the first time I have been here with the RCV so we just tested suspension, tyres and general settings. We will be able to judge the results tomorrow. But I'm feeling quite confident.

Tohru Ukawa: 1min 45.586secs.
I'm satisfied with what we did today. I have already tested the bike here, just before Christmas, so I have a good comparison. The bike is better than the last time, even though we spent the day testing many tyres and suspension settings. Like Valentino, I think tomorrow we will really see
how much we have improved.

Daijiro Katoh: 1min 46.435secs.
It was a day dedicated to search for settings to improve the times. We still aren't ready , but tomorrow we start to make progress, I'm sure. ?verybody was expecting the 4-stroke day, in fact They go very fast, but still not everybody, but they had improved the record.I knew that , but
we have trust, we will see tomorrow

Loris Capirossi: 1min 45.359secs.
This is a general test for the team and we are learning a lot about the new NSR500. The bike is certainly better than last year. The chassis is much improved and performs better all-round. The engine performance has also improved but not as much as the chassis.

We are, of course, setting the machine for the circuit looking towards the GP here in June. We have a front end chatter problem but we improved the feel front the front during the day. The main thing is the bike is better than at the last test and that's most important.

Alex Barros: 1min 45.547secs.
Everything looks good today, difficult so I'm not exactly at 100%. We have some setting problems which we are working on geometry and suspension to fix that. The bike is completely new and we have lots of work to do to before we get the best out of it. Michelin brought us many tyres to test and at the end of the day I was 2/10ths of a second faster today than at the GP last year.

So, with more to come from the bike I'm sure we are in good shape for the season. We have more tests before the Suzuka GP. I feel comfortable on the bike and that gives me confidence.

Jurgen van den Goorbergh: 1min 47.749secs.
We did a lot of tyre testing today, carrying on from where we left off at the last test, at Estoril. Unfortunately we did not go in the direction I want. Rear wheel traction and a little movement from the tyre. The front tyre we used today is great, it works well here and at Estoril and Valencia.

If we can get the rear to work as well here as the front does, we could run low 1m 46s times. We also worked on the suspension settings along with the tyres. We found a few solutions to suit the track so it was a good day in that respect.

Shinichi Itoh: 1min 47.766secs.
I'm here to help with testing Bridgestone tyres for Team Kanemoto. We have so many tyres to test here but we can see progress. Bridgestone have made huge steps since I first tested the tyre - now it's step by step. But we are going in the right direction.