Rossi met with the press in India this week.

Fiat Yamaha’s MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi has spent this week in the Indian capital of New Delhi, taking part in a press conference and interviews with the Indian media.

The nine-time world champion was joined by Masao Furusawa, executive officer for Engineering Operations at Yamaha Motor Company.

Over 300 Yamaha dealers and members of the press turned out to see Rossi, who was visiting India for the first time. Rossi rounded off his two-day trip to the country by meeting John Abraham, one of the biggest Indian film stars and also an ambassador for Yamaha India. The Italian flies home tonight to enjoy the final two weeks of holiday before the winter testing regime begins in Malaysia.

“This is my very first visit to India and I am impressed by the beauty of this country, although sadly I did not have much time to visit Delhi.” Rossi said. “I hope to be able to come back soon and have more time to enjoy this place. Yamaha has been doing great things here and the positive response from the market is the evidence that they have been going in the right direction.

“The new models YZF-R15 and FZ16, which are less-powerful replicas of the R1 and the Fazer, are definitely appropriate for this market and for the characteristics of the traffic here in India. In fact I am amazed at the traffic and the incredible numbers of cars and bikes on the road all the time, by day and night! It was great to see John Abraham, I met him a few years ago when he came to a race so it was nice to see him in his own country, where he is very famous.

“I’m flying home now but it has been a very good trip; I am happy to have so many fans here in India and I hope that one day we will have the chance to race here.”

Rossi will shoot for his 10th world championship in 2010 alongside teammate Jorge Lorenzo, the pair entering this season as the favourites alongside Australian Casey Stoner.