Valentino Rossi began preparations for his 26th grand prix𝔍 season, and first at the Petronas Yamaha team, during the start of Official MotoGP testing in Qatar on Saturday.

"26 seasons is q༒uite impressive. It's a life, not a career!" Rossi smiled.

"But I feel good, I know tha💫t the game is very hard because there are a lot 𒅌of young riders and in MotoGP now the level is very high and everybody is very strong.

"But I will give the🔴 maximum for sure. I tꦺrained hard during this winter. I feel quite good and we'll see.

"This morning I was very excited because𝕴 it's the start of a new adventure. New colours, new team, new everything and this gives me a lot of motivation,⭕ a lot of strength for work.

"It was strange at the beginning but at the end the bike is always ꦛmy M1, so even if she changed the dress, the rest is the same and the team has a good atmosphere."

The Italian featured as top Yamaha on several occasions during the day, eventually finishing 14th on the timesheets (+0.897s) after 49 laps in his new colours. Rossi was one place ahead of Fabio Quartararo, the rider 🐎he has swapped seats with for 2021.

"The end result is not fantastic but duri🍰ng all day I was not so bad, my pace was quite good, so the first touch is positive," he said.

The🎶 top priority for Yamaha during the five days of testing is to solve last year's inconsi♉stent performances from the Factory-spec machine.

The chassis is the main focus, each rider appearing to having one standard bike and another machine fitted with developmen𝓡t parts.

"Yamaha worked hard this winter, we have some new stuff to try, but sincerely today we don’t try a lot," Rossi said. "We work more on the🍃 base ꦫbut I think in the next four days we have something to try, so we hope it's something good.

"I did some laps with the new chassis and the first touch is not so bad, but I did just 6-7 laps because we concentrated on the standard bike today. So maybe we will have a clearer🦋 idea in the next days.ܫ"

Team-mate and MotoGP title runner-up Franco Morbidelli (who uses the A-Spec Yamaha) was again the top M1 rider, in seventh, with Quartararo's Monster Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales ninth quickes�🐽�t.