Melandri aiming to improve in Europe

Another consistent display from Honda Gresini rider Marco Melandri at the Sinopec Great Wall Lubricants Grand Prix of China, where he started sixth on the grid and finished fifth, has lifted the Italian to fourth in the World Championship standings.

Another consistent display from Honda Gresini rider Marco Melandri at the Sinopec Great Wall Lubricants Grand Prix of China, where he started sixth on the grid and finished fifth, has lifted the Italian to fourth in the World Championship standings.

The 24 year-old former 250cc World Champion has had a slightly frustrating start to the season, completing each race but not quite achieving the results he would like, finishing fifth in each race other than Jerez where he crossed the line eighth.

Having struggled in qualifying thus far in 2007 he creditably came from 14th on the grid to win 11 points in Turkey and repeated that haul in China in a race where he was temporarily placed second early in proceedings before some technical problems saw him drop back slightly.

The Honda rider sits behind Casey Stoner, Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa in the general classification on 41 points, though he has 45 points to make up on leader Stoner.

Following his Far Eastern outing Melandri commented: "I'm pleased because I gave my best, but I can't deny that I'm aiming for better results than this. I got a good start and felt comfortable with the bike, it felt good at the start of the race. I was able to move up to second place but after a few laps I started to suffer a little with chatter and it didn't help. We have a lot of hard work to do because at the moment we're behind."

Meanwhile his team boss Fausto Gresini added: "Marco had a good race and gave his best – I don't think you can do any more than that. We certainly have some work to do to take that next step forward. Marco is now fourth. It's a long season and there is still plenty of time to recover."