For ten minutes on Friday afternoon at Sepang Valenti𒈔no Rossi and Loris Capirossi recreated th꧒eir 2006 victory battle at the Malaysian circuit, although this time it was purely for fun.

The two Italians found themselves on track together at 4pm and, after almost two days of riding against the stopwatch, couldn't resist dicing with each other (pic✤tured).

The duel eventually came to an end when Rossi,ﷺ riding with six stitches in his hand and another six in 🌼his foot, was forced to back off - leaving Loris to wave his hand in appreciation as he rode past.

Afterwards, mahbx.com asked Rossi about the 'battle'ꦚ: "It was great fun! I am always ve💛ry happy to fight with Loris because he is one of the old school - it is always exciting to try and fight with him.

"I think he enjoyed it a lot as well beca༒use he was faster than me. He overtook me in braking and it was like an old battle between us. Our 2006 battle here [won by Rossi] was a great race and today was very similar, except then Loris was on a Ducati.

"I am so happy that Loris is fast, because last year he had a bad injuღry and it looked like the Suzuki was not very fast, 🤡but this year with the new bike and with no injury he is competitive.

"And ꦺLoris is 36 years old now, so I have seven more years!" smiled Rossi, who finished the day third fastest, 0.143sec from fastest manꩵ Casey Stoner and 0.071sec behind the on-form Capirossi.

Capirossi confirmed that he had enjoyed the 'fight'♏ just as much as Rossi.

"Yeah we played a little bit at the end, it was nice," smiled Loris, standing outside the Team Suzuki pit. "We enjoy෴ed it a lot because he overtook me and I overtook him. Sometimes it is nice to ride like that and whenever I race with Valentino it is fun. For sure we hope to race like that again this season..."