"We continued with the pneumatic-valve engine as it's important to get as much mileage as possible behind us with this engine to check the performance, the reliability and just to gain experience with it," explained the new Bridgestone rider, who improved on his best day one time by over one second.

"With the electronics we worked a lot on the acceleration mapping and I'm quite happy with this. Although it doesn't make us any faster, it helps me to be more comfortable on the bike. Finally we tested some different rear tyres with Bridgestone and also some qualifying tyres, although we didn't improve on the time with the soft tyres so we need to work more in this area.

"We completed a lot of work today and hopefully we can have another good day tomorrow to finish," Vale concluded.

Rossi was one of three Yamaha riders in the top four, with rookie factory team-mate Jorge Lorenzo just behind him and Yamaha Tech 3's Colin Edwards just ahead of him.

"Today was a good day!" smiled Lorenzo. "We continued in the same way as yesterday, working on our overall performance and we improved by one second, so this is very encouraging. I tested the new pneumatic-valve engine and this was interesting and I found some improvement with it.

"We're still working on the hard braking and, although we have improved our performance in these areas a bit, we still need to do more work on this. Likewise I'm still adjusting my riding style to better suit the M1 but this is becoming more natural and comfortable for me day-by-day.

"Finally we also began testing tyres with Michelin today. We tried quite a lot of new material, especially for the rear, and found some good stuff. I'm happy with the day's work and hopefully we can have an even better day tomorrow," added the reigning double 250cc world champion.