Edwards sets the pace during final day at Sepang.

On the third and final day of the second Sepang Test of 2007, the teams rounded off their week of fine tuning their new 800cc machines ahead of the season curtain-raiser next month.

In a repeat of day one of the test (Monday 5th February), Colin Edwards was once again the fastest rider at Sepang today (Wednesday 7th February), in blistering form on the Yamaha M1. The factory team rider clocked a lap time of 2mins 00.248secs, a time under the 990cc pole position record, set on qualifying tyres. He cut over a second off his fastest lap from yesterday.

Once again, Edwards was closely followed by team-mate and five-time MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi. The Italian joined the Texan Tornado as the only riders to lap in under 2mins 01secs, with both undertaking a race simulation on the 800cc Yamaha.

Team Director Davide Brivio yesterday stated that today's extended run was intended to see if small changes made over the previous two sessions would be crucial to race performance, and perhaps the Italian now has his answer after a combined 89 laps from his riders.

Once again putting in a solid number of laps, Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet also managed to cut his times from the previous two days. The Frenchman showed no ill-effects from the minor crash he suffered yesterday, and also performed a race simulation as part of his 63 lap marathon on the Ninja ZX-RR800. Team-mate Olivier Jacque also made improvements as part of a positive three days for the Gallic duo.

The Yamaha Tech 3 team decided against an extended run, with both Makoto Tamada and Sylvain Guintoli putting in 35 laps apiece. They continue to work hard with their tyre development as the only team using Dunlop rubber this season.

The only Ilmor team rider at this week's test, Andrew Pitt rounded off what may be his last solo outing before the expected return of team-mate Jeremy McWilliams. The Australian established his task this week as finding a base for the bike, and today rode more laps than any other rider.

All four teams will join the remainder of the MotoGP grid next Tuesday 13th February for the first Official Test in Qatar, the scene of the opening round of the championship on March 10th.