Tyres top of the agenda for Melandri

Placing eighth as he continues to regain confidence and learn the Hayate Racing Kawasaki bike, Marco Melandri had another impressive showing in Japan on Friday. He was working for the majority of the session with his second machine, after a minor electrical problem with his main bike.

Despite his progress, the Italian admitted to being less than fully comfortable with the tyre choice available to him for the weekend.

“It took us nearly all the session to understand that we need to use the softer tyre with the second bike, because the weather is a little cold,” said Melandri after the run.

“The big problem for us is that Bridgestone brought a harder left side to their tyres, which are difficult to warm up in the first three laps. With the session being so short, long runs are difficult to make.

“The medium tyres are a little too hard for me. The soft ones look a bit too hard on the left but the right seems ok. I know that (Mika) Kallio had a crash when the tyre was cold, because you go a long time without riding on the left at this track. However, there’s such a difference between the two tyres that there is really only one choice for the race.”

Melandri’s quickest time stopped the clock at 1’50.123