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First Shots of Valentino Rossi on the Ducati

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Clad in only carbon fiber bodywork, Valentino Rossi made the mental switch from blue to red today, as he swung his leg over the Ducati Desmosedici for the first time — a moment Italy, and the whole of MotoGP have been waiting for the entire 2010 MotoGP season.

As such Rossi and his crew from Yamaha will not be wearing the Rosso Corsa just yet (the former Yamaha crew has instead elected to wear some very smart looking yellow sweaters), but Rossi’s yellow “46” did make it onto the bike for the testing session, which is about all the branding that Ducati & Rossi fans need to see at this point to get in a fervor.

Promoting his VR46 line, Rossi is wearing special one-off Dainese D-Air leathers, which like the D16, is all black with yellow accents, while his AGV helmet has a question mark set between the Italian’s sun & moon logo. We wouldn’t be surprised if a replica version of these became available later this year. Video, lap times, and photos after the jump.

Day 1 MotoGP Test Times from Valencia (as of 5pm local time):

Pos Rider Team Fastest lap Prev. Gap Lead. Gap Laps
1 Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha Factory Racing 1:32.012 48
2 Casey Stoner HRC 1:32.775 +0.763 +0.763 44
3 Ben Spies Yamaha Factory Racing 1:32.878 +0.103 +0.866 42
4 Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team 1:32.912 +0.034 +0.900 35
5 Marco Simoncelli San Carlo Honda Gresini 1:32.919 +0.007 +0.907 59
6 Andrea Dovizioso Repsol Honda Team 1:33.190 +0.271 +1.178 50
7 Colin Edwards Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1:33.513 +0.323 +1.501 49
8 Alvaro Bautista Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1:33.558 +0.045 +1.546 54
9 Nicky Hayden Ducati Team 1:33.716 +0.158 +1.704 54
10 Valentino Rossi Ducati Team 1:33.882 +0.166 +1.870 56
11 Randy De Puniet Pramac Racing Team 1:33.914 +0.032 +1.902 54
12 Hiroshi Aoyama San Carlo Honda Gresini 1:33.953 +0.039 +1.941 67
13 Hector Barbera Paginas Amarillas Aspar 1:34.110 +0.157 +2.098 76
14 Cal Crutchlow Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1:34.314 +0.204 +2.302 59
15 Loris Capirossi Pramac Racing Team 1:34.631 +0.317 +2.619 71
16 Toni Elias LCR Honda MotoGP 1:35.058 +0.427 +3.046 60
17 Karel Abraham Cardion AB Motoracing 1:35.076 +0.018 +3.064 49

Source: MotoGP

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