First Shots of Valentino Rossi on the Ducati

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