Warm-up crash costs Melandri dear

Italian rider Marco Melandri was feeling confident on Sunday morning before the eighth race of the season, but a crash in the warm-up session at Laguna Seca disrupted his preparations and meant he was uncomfortable once the real action commenced.

The Hayate Racing representative eventually came home tenth – of the 12 riders to complete the race – but felt that he could have earned more points from 11th on the grid, had he not suffered his morning mishap.

“We had quite a good set-up and I was confident but I had a small crash,” said Melandri of the incident. “We tried to repair the bike and use the same one but it was a big mistake because the settings were completely different to the morning and were not working well. I had a completely different feeling on left and right corners and the throttle wasn’t smooth, so it was tough.”

He continued, “I was just riding to finish the race because I already knew from the warm-up lap that I wasn’t going to do well. It’s disappointing because I think we had everything to do a good race, so now we have to look forward to the next one.”

Giving some further thoughts on the forthcoming visit to Sachsenring, Melandri added, “It’s a strange track because it’s very, very tight and you stay on the left side a lot. We’ll have to see about the weather too because sometimes it can be very unpredictable.”