'An important moment' - Rossi finishes his final MotoGP test

Valentino Rossi's final MotoGP test, almost 22-years after the first, came to an end at his home Misano circuit on Wednesday afternoon.

As the 42-year-old, who will retire at the end of this season, admitted, testing can be a lot of hard work without the rewards of a race weekend.

"It's the last test so it's an important moment, but sincerely speaking I will not miss the tests in the future!" smiled the nine time world champion. "Because it's always hard, hard work physically and mentally. And it's difficult. It's the hard part of our job. I prefer the race weekends!"

Nonetheless, there have been several tests during Rossi's legendary career that stand-out the most, all of them linked with first experiences of a new bike or class.

"Yeah, like you said the tests that you remember are usually when you try for the first time a new bike. So I remember very well the first test with the 250 but especially the first test with the Honda 500 in Jerez, with Jeremy [Burgess] and Bernie [Ansiau] for the first time. I think it was November or December 1999. That was very impressive," Rossi said.

"After, I remember the first test of the four-stroke Honda that was in Suzuka after the 8 Hours. We won the 8 hours with Colin [Edwards] and after we did the test with the first MotoGP bike. And it was August 2001 I think.

"The other test I remember very well was the first test with the Yamaha, in Sepang, in January of 2004. The first time I tried the M1. Also together with Jeremy. I think these are the better tests of my career."

Rossi's father Graziano was at the Misano track to watch his son's last laps outside of a grand prix weekend.

"He understands [I'm retiring] now. He was the last to give up, because he wanted that I continue, but now he's okay and he came yesterday and today to see some laps," said Rossi, who traditionally signs-off each test with a long wheelie on the main straight.

While Rossi didn't have any major new parts to try on his Petronas Yamaha, he was able to make 'positive' progress ahead of his final home MotoGP appearance at the same Misano circuit in late October.

"The test was quite positive, especially yesterday was good because we don’t have new items to try but we try to concentrate on the settings and all the small details," Rossi said.

"We found something good, especially yesterday, I had a good pace. I improved my pace. And also the time attack was quite good. Today we continued with another two or three very small things. All is okay, we finish our work. And stop."

After finishing just 17th in Sunday's race, Rossi was eleventh fastest on day one of the test (+0.646s), then 19th (+1.243s) in the Wednesday morning session. He rode for just 12 laps in the afternoon (19th).

The Doctor now heads for COTA and the first of four remaining races before he hangs up his MotoGP leathers.

"We hope [to be stronger]. We work and we try to improve some things, but now it depends very much track by track" he said.

"In two weeks we will race in Austin, Austin is a very particular track, very difficult. Full of bumps. Low grip. Not easy. And in 2019, the last time I was there, I was strong. So we will see this time…"