Frustration felt by Melandri and Simoncelli

Marco Melandri and Marco Simoncelli both experienced problems throughout the final pre-season Test in Qatar which left the San Carlo Honda Gresini duo concerned with the start of the season so close.

Melandri was frustrated with being unable to reach a comfortable feeling on his RC212V machine, and a crash which left his bike ruined – he fortunately escaped injury – added to his woes. He is determined to overcome what was a hard Test however and try and be at the best possible level for the first race at the Losail circuit on April 11th.

“I’m a bit disappointed because we’ve tried practically everything but nothing has helped us get on the right track,” explained the Italian, who was 14th on the overall timesheet. “None of the changes gave encouraging results and our work was just being wasted. A crash further complicated things with the bike being completely wrecked. I don’t think that it’s just our problem though because I can see that virtually all the Honda riders have similar problems to us. The first race will soon be upon us and the current situation is quite worrying. We need total commitment all round to find the answers and overcome this tough moment.”

His team-mate and rookie Simoncelli had the same issues, as he struggled to improve his feeling and times.

“It’s been really hard work, we’ve tried all sorts of things but we haven’t found one which helps us move forward,” said Simoncelli, who also had a crash in the second session and was just over two seconds off the fastest time set by Casey Stoner.

“At this clearly difficult moment in time I don’t believe that my lack of experience in MotoGP is relevant. I can see that other Honda riders are also having more or less the same problems so I believe that together we must all roll up our sleeves to get out of this low point.”