Barely days after Valentino Rossi wrapped up the 2005 MotoGP season by picking up his fifth consecutive title trophy, the motorbike star is now conducting an intensive three day test with Scuderia Ferrari at Fiorano and Mugello. Rossi rounded out yet another dominant MotoGP season in Valencia on Sunday with a third place finish, having fought up the order after starting a lowly 15th on the grid, and in the process he collected his fifth MotoGP trophy, his seventh bike career title. Meanwhile this weekend, the Italian will be taking part in the end-of-season Championshow at Pesaro, but in the meantime it has been revealed that he is undertaking an intensive three day test with Ferrari, which will be wrapped up this afternoon.

The Italian's third F1 test with Ferrari (the first two were undertaken at Fiorano in April 2005, and then August this year) has seen him in action at the wheel of last year's F2004 chassis, running a number of laps at Ferrari's private test track Fiorano on Wednesday, before moving onto the Mugello circuit on Thursday, and again today. Rossi has won the last four MotoGP races held at Mugello, and so it is expected to offer useful pointers as he knows the track very well. Italian sports daily newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, Rossi reported that Rossi's quickest laps at Fiorano on Wednesday were around 58 seconds, which compares well to Michael Schumacher's lap record of 55.9 seconds.
 

The revelation of this latest test has caught F1 watchers' somewhat by surprise. During the summer months speculation about Rossi joining up with Scuderia Ferrari in 2007 (he had just signed a single year extension to his Yamaha MotoGP contract at the time) were reaching fever pitch, stoked in no small part by the Scuderia's technical boss Ross Brawn, who commented that Rossi would undertake a number of tests with them next year. The bike star however was very quick to downplay the rumours, dismissing Brawn's comments out of hand, and stating that his current focus was firmly on two wheels.

The haste with which this intensive test has followed the conclusion of the MotoGP season - just last Sunday in Spain - implies that Rossi and Ferrari are both anxious to decide once and for all whether he can make the rarely-made switch to four wheels, and allow both to begin making forward plans.