Reigning MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo is off to fresh start in 2011, debuting Alpinestars leathers and a brand new sponsorship deal with Rockstar Energy Drink at the opening day of the Sepang test in Malaysia.

Lorenzo, who remains with Yamaha albeit without Fiat as the team’s title sponsor for this season, set the second fastest lap of the opening day with a 2:01.977 – less than half a second from Aussie Casey Stoner’s best.

“It’s been a good start today, we tried a few things and it seemed for everything we tried it was a little bit better, not big improvements,” the Spaniard said.

“But as I said in Valencia at the test last year, the 2011 bike seems to have less wheelie so we can open the throttle earlier in the corners and in some corners I have better corner speed as well.

“Today was my first ride wearing Alpinestars so there were a lot of things for me to get used to. We pushed a bit more towards the end of the session and got faster, we will continue to make the step tomorrow.”

Lorenzo switches to Alpinestars following a lengthy career in Dainese – essentially switching deals with former champion Nicky Hayden, who has gone to Dainese from Alpinestars for the new year.

Day two tomorrow will see Lorenzo and teammate Ben Spies working on various areas of the 2011 race bike’s development along with testing tyres for MotoGP tyre supplier Bridgestone.

In advance of the official 2011 Yamaha Factory Racing Team launch at the second Sepang test, both riders took to the track today riding YZR-M1s with plain black carbon fibre fairing.

From tomorrow however the M1 of both Lorenzo and Spies will have a special ‘one-event’ Yamaha Factory Racing Blue de-branded design to be filmed for a Yamaha corporate video as part of the ongoing Yamaha World GP 50th Anniversary activities.

This design will only be used for the remaining two days of the Sepang test.