Three weeks after the first official test of the year at the Sepang International Circuit the MotoGP riders will return to the Malaysian track this week to carry on with the developments of their respective prototypes, ahead of the start of the World Championship season in Qatar on April 11.

Scheduled for three days from February 24-26 the opening day on Wednesday will be for test riders only, with Thursday and Friday offering valuable time for the team riders to further the customisation of their 2010 machines.

Valentino Rossi set the standard at the first test with the only sub-2’01” lap of the test on his M1, and the Fiat Yamaha rider and reigning World Champion will again be working on new aspects of the setting on his bike. His team-mate Jorge Lorenzo will not be testing however as he continues his recovery from a hand injury sustained in a training accident.

Casey Stoner was pleased with the reaction of the new engine in the Desmosedici GP10 of the Ducati Marlboro team, as was team-mate Nicky Hayden, and the duo will again focus on finding their comfort zones. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa was happy with his RC212V after the first test and both he and team-mate Andrea Dovizioso will maintain their acclimatisation to the bike.

Rizla Suzuki will have their new GSV-R engine for Loris Capirossi and Álvaro Bautista to test, and Monster Yamaha Tech3 pairing Ben Spies and Colin Edwards will look to build on what was a pleasing opening test on their M1 machines. Pramac Racing’s Aleix Espargaró and Mika Kallio will have their second rides on the GP10, and Marco Melandri (San Carlo Honda Gresini) and Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) will both persist with the RC212V.

Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda MotoGP), Héctor Barberá (Paginas Amarillas Ducati) and Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini) will all gain more important experience ahead of their debut seasons in the premier class.

Source: motogp.com

Last Saturday the Fan’s Club Alvaro Bautista had it’s first annual member meeting in Talavera de la Reina to evaluate the first year of its existence. Overall it’s been a positive balance.
Club president César Mendoza said “As everyone knows we started with nothing and we ended the year with a number of 1800 members and a bit of capital at our hands. It’s not much, but it’s enough to start the year with a bit of joy and giving our best for the members. The less we have to spend and the more we can give back to the fans, the better.” The new budget is about 8000 Euros. “We had some plus, so we start this year better than the last one, because we want to invest it for our members, the ones who really deserve it are true fans of Alvaro.”

The event calender for this year again has a lot of travel for the fanclub members in store. Additionally to the three Spanish GP rounds (Jerez, Catalunya, Valencia), they’ll also be present at Estoril and Misano this season to support Alvaro during the race weekends.
On location in Talavera the fanclub will continue with its big annual celebration and also be present again at the Talavera fair. But there will also be two new events. One will be a bike meeting, hosted together with their sponsor La Sixtina, and the other will be a kids fest, “so that the children of Talavera are getting to know Alvaro and the world of motorcycles and that everybody knows about us and what we do, because Alvaro and Talavera is known worldwide; that everybody speaks about us and speaks well, of course.”

Alvaro’s father Javier and his manager Armando were both present at the fanclub meeting while Alvaro himself was already flying to Japan on Saturday to visit the Suzuki factory. From there he travels to the next MotoGP test in Sepang which will start with test riders tomorrow and see the official riders on track from Thursday.
Mendoza affirmed that Alvaro feels very good ahead of this new stage in his career and that right now he just wants to get used to the bike and see what the real potential is of him and the bike with the new engine.

You can now register again as a fanclub member for the 2010 season. To find out how, click here.