"This has been a positive test for us, and we have finished the year very well," declared the Italian. "Despite the cold weather allowing us just a few hours to test over these two days, we have been able to go through more or less our entire programme and check everything on the agenda. This means that we have given a lot of valuable information to our Japanese engineers, and this will help them in their development work over the winter.

"Valentino finished fastest today, which is a great conclusion to the year, and shows that we're on the right track with the 2009-prototype M1. Now we have some time for rest and so I would like to thank all of the team once again for their hard work and wish them happy holidays!”

Rossi's team-mate Jorge Lorenzo was third fastest on both days, the 2008 rookie of the year was 1.638sec behind Pedrosa on day one and 0.997sec from Rossi on day two.

Pedrosa, like Rossi, was using a prototype '09 bike at the test, while Lorenzo used a standard '08 M1 on Wednesday and then an 'evolution' of the '08 on Thursday.

Despite all riders using Bridgestone tyres next year, Fiat Yamaha has confirmed that the wall dividing Rossi and Lorenzo in the pit garage will remain in place next season.

While Yamaha, Ducati and Honda teams were testing at Jerez, Suzuki and Kawasaki have been at Phillip Island in Australia. The Phillip Island test will conclude on Friday.