'The one from last time' refers to the race simulation Rossi completed during January's Sepang test, however Rossi took a 'rest' (one very slow lap) three-quarters of the way through that simulation, making his 'race time' harder to calculate.

Nevertheless, during the January simulation, Rossi was only able to complete two laps in the 2mins 1secs bracket, compared with 14 laps this week. His best individual lap was also 0.415secs slower than on Thursday.

"Today's race simulation was good and an improvement on January, plus the individual lap times within it were fast and consistent," confirmed team manager Davide Brivio. "This is a very important indication of our level."

Rossi completed his 48th and final lap of the day at just after 2:00pm and was later knocked from the top of the timesheets by team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, who used a qualifying tyre to cut 0.485secs from the #46's own soft-rubber effort, set just before his race simulation.

After two tests in Malaysia, Fiat Yamaha now heads for Jerez, from February 16-18, to face a full line-up of its 2008 rivals.

"We've only done 50% of our [2008] pre-season testing, we have two more to go before the first race but we hope to continue improving like this and arrive at the first race in good shape and ready to commence our challenge," concluded Brivio.