Melandri reviews tough race

Eighth place at Misano for Marco Melandri was by no means a spectacular result for the Italian rider, but he was satisfied that he and his Hayate Racing crew had done another good job at round thirteen - after he started the race in twelfth on the grid and worked his way through the pack in the early running.

The 27 year-old former 250cc World Champion tried for much of the race to overcome Finn Mika Kallio, who was riding a factory Desmosedici as Melandri did last season, though ultimately the former Ducati man was unable to get past the MotoGP rookie on this occasion.

Describing how the 28-lap contest had gone from his point of view, Melandri told motogp.com, “It was a tough race. I was lucky on the first corner because De Angelis made a mistake and brought down some other riders, but I had a good start so I was away from the crash. I was sixth after two corners but I couldn’t really push because the feeling with a new tyre is always very difficult, but after that things got better. I was following Kallio, but on some corners he was faster than me and in other places I was faster than him, so it was tough.”

“Every time I tried to recover time on him and pass him I made a mistake and the bike was quite difficult to ride, so I couldn’t catch the guys in front of me. Anyway overall it was a good race because we were not far away from the second group and that was my goal. I’m now already looking forward to the next round.”