Marco Melandri

Marco Melandri

PERSONAL DETAILS
NAME: MARCO MELANDRI
TEAM: DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM
NATIONALITY: ITALIAN
DATE OF BIRTH: 7 AUGUST 1982
MARRIED: SINGLE

After a frustrating 2007, Marco Melandri will get his big chance in 2008 when he rides alongside world champion Casey Stoner at the Ducati Marlboro Team.

Melandri moved quickly through the 125 and 250cc ranks. In 1998, aged 15, he won his first 125 grand prix at the imposing Assen track, then finished title runner-up the following season, before graduating to 250 in 2000. Marco was a race winner in his second season and, aged 20, became a world champion in his third and final year in the quarter-litre class - prompting a factory Yamaha MotoGP seat for 2003.

Melandri premier-class career began disastrously when he injured his ankle in practice for the Suzuka season opener - then spent the best part of a month recuperating - only to injured again at the end of the year when he dislocated a shoulder at Phillip Island.

Countryman Valentino Rossi's switch to Yamaha saw Melandri transferred to the satellite Yamaha Tech 3 team. With his injuries recovering, Melandri scored his first two MotoGP podiums at rounds five and six, indicating his future stardom, but then came a dramatic decline, attributed to compartment syndrome (arm pump).

That required mid-season surgery, but Marco never regained his early season form and suffered a soul destroying second half of the season - during which he failed to finish five of the seven races.

Those DNFs left Melandri's value at rock bottom, but Fausto Gresini was confident he could extract Marco's talent and signed the #33 to partner double MotoGP title runner-up Sete Gibernau on a satellite spec Honda RC211V for the 2005 season.

It was to prove a dream partnership and, after careful rebuilding Melandri's confidence during pre-season testing, Marco rewarded Gresini by finishing third in his first ever RCV race.

Four more podiums followed before Melandri took a breakthrough debut MotoGP victory at the Turkish Grand Prix, then repeated the feat next time out at the Valencia season finale. Those wins helped Melandri finish a brilliant second in the world championship, behind Rossi, and completed a remarkable career turnaround.

Melandri unsurprisingly stayed with Gresini for the 2006 season - and was in firm title contention when he won two of the first five rounds. However, when Ducati team-mates Gibernau and Loris Capirossi collided spectacularly into turn one at round seven, the Catalan Grand Prix, Melandri became an innocent victim and suffered injuries that would ultimately end his title hopes.

Marco rode through the pain to try and limit the damage, was back on the podium two rounds later - and won a third race later in the year - but the championship was already out of reach by the time he arrived at the Valencia season finale. Nevertheless, Melandri still finished a dramatic season fourth in the points and had won more races than any other Honda rider, including world champion Nicky Hayden.

Ducati came close to signing Melandri at the end of 2006, but Gresini - aided by Honda - was able to retain his star rider for the first year of 800cc competition. Unfortunately, 2007 was a bad year for Honda, and even worse for the satellite riders, although Melandri at least managed three podiums, helped by his new Bridgestone tyres.

But it was soon clear that he was unhappy with the lack of technical support from Honda, given his previous success, and it was no surprise when - just before the summer break - he was confirmed as a factory Ducati rider for 2008.


Career Highlights:

1992 : Pocketbikes, Italian Champion
1994 : Pocketbikes, Italian Champion
1996 : 125 Italian Championship (Honda) last races only
13th 125 Honda Trophy (Honda)
1997 : 125cc Italian Champion – Honda.
125cc Honda Trophy Grand Prix Winner.
4th 125cc European Championship.
1998 : 3rd 125cc World Championship Honda - race wins 2.
1999 : 2nd 125cc World Championship Honda - race wins 5.
2000 : 5th 250cc World Championship Aprilia.
2001 : 3rd 250cc World Championship Aprilia - race wins 1.
2002 : 250cc World Champion Aprilia – race wins 9.
2003 : 15th MotoGP World Championship Yamaha.
2004 : 12th MotoGP World Championship Yamaha.
2005 : 2nd MotoGP World Championship Honda - race wins 2.
2006 : 4th MotoGP World Championship Honda - race wins 3.
2007: 5th MotoGP World Championship Honda.

END OF 2007.
STARTS: N/A
WINS: 22 (5 - MOTOGP, 10 - 250CC, 7 - 125CC)
POLES: 9 (2 - 250CC, 6 - 125CC)
FASTEST LAPS: 16 (3 - MOTOGP, 8 - 250CC, 5 - 125CC)
POINTS: N/A
DEBUT: JPN 2003 (MOTOGP) / RSA 2000 (250CC) / CZE 1997 (125CC)
DRIVEN FOR: DUCATI MARLBORO (2008) / GRESINI HONDA (2007) / FORTUNA HONDA (2006) / TELEFONICA HONDA (2005) / FORTUNA GAULOISES TECH 3 (2004) / FORTUNA YAMAHA TEAM (2003-2004) / MS APRILIA RACING (2001) / APRILIA GRAND PRIX RACING (2000)

Melandri: `I thought about quitting´
Tuesday, 11 November 2008

New Kawasaki signing Marco Melandri has admitted in his personal `Marco33´ blog that his lack of results in 2008 made him consider leaving MotoGP.



Following the conclusion of his troubled 2008 campaign with Ducati and the new chapter in his career with Kawasaki Italian MotoGP rider Marco Melandri has given a frank assessment of his difficulties this season on his website www.marcomelandri.it.

In a blog update entitled `Marco´s confessions´, the 26 year-old wrote, `The 2008 season is over. It has been a year in which I have had to learn from my disappointments and I don´t look back with regret because I reached a big turning point in my life in June.´

`It was a really hard time and to be honest I even considered walking away from it all. Then one day something clicked and I realised that there were still so many people backing me and believing in me, and that made a big difference to me.´

Melandri, whose best performance all year was fifth in China early in May, finished 17th in the general classification – his worst ever championship result in the premier class. However, his move to Kawasaki for the 2009 season gives him new motivation and the opportunity to put things right next year.

`Now I am starting to see things differently and I feel really good,´ he stated. My work is the biggest passion in my life and I am going to keep giving it everything I´ve got because I enjoy riding so much. It is not like I haven´t tried hard this year though, in fact it was the opposite, I did all I could to try and win. But when things are going badly and nothing works like it should there is nothing more you can do.´

`One thing I have learned is that you don´t always need to question yourself so much and say `where am I going wrong?´, because it doesn´t always help with looking forward. It just makes you worry more. Sometimes I think you need to let things be and just remind yourself that you are doing the right thing.´

Melandri thanked his supporters and sponsors, before concluding, `I will have a holiday now - and then at the end of November I´ll stop in Japan before heading to Australia for our last test of the year.´

Aw poor Marco, I hope he does really really well in the 2009 season. It would be great to see him back where he belongs!!

Melandri problems go from back to front
Thursday, 27 November 2008

Steady improvements for Italian in Phillip Island as he looks to correct Kawasaki front end feeling deficit.


Marco Melandri´s difficulties from 2008 have changed with a switch in bike, with the lack of rear feeling that he experienced with the Ducati Desmosedici GP8 mimicked by the front end of the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-RR. Luckily for the Italian, persistence in `Team Green´s three-day test at Phillip Island has already seen him reduce his race time from this year´s Australian race, despite rain on the second day of testing.

Melandri worked overnight with his crew and Kawasaki´s suspension engineers in order to find some improvement on the front, with reasonable success coming as a result. Aiming for times in the low 1´31s, the former MotoGP World Championship runner-up clocked a quickest lap of 1´31.8 before rain and wind cut the day´s activities short.

A small setback for Melandri occurred late on with a small crash at turn four, leaving his machine in need of a rebuild before the final day of testing `Down Under´.

Whilst teammate John Hopkins focused on tyre evaluation work for Bridgestone, Melandri got his hands on the new chassis previously debuted by Olivier Jacque on Wednesday. Jacque himself improved his time from the opening day, recording a 1´32.1 lap, but noted that progress was not coming as fast as expected.

`We´ve not really improved our lap time as much as we would have liked, but we have tried many different set-up changes, with a focus on the chassis geometry. The wind was also a big problem today as it was very strong and changed direction from morning to afternoon,´ said the Kawasaki test rider on Thursday. `I´m not sure how much this affects our bike in terms of set-up, but it was very noticeable out on track.´

All three riders will be back on track on Friday for a final day of action, with data being sent to Japan for evaluation over the winter.

46Trudi52 wrote:A small setback for Melandri occurred late on with a small crash at turn four, leaving his machine in need of a rebuild before the final day of testing `Down Under´.

I hope poor Marco isnt going back to his old ways!

old habits are hard to break

i mean you dont expect casey to stop whining overnight

marco cant stop overnight either

lol

Paddock Press: Porta on Melandri´s 2008 season
Thursday, 11 December 2008

Italian rider´s difficult season with Ducati is looked over by Mediaset journalist.


The reasons for Marco Melandri´s inability to gel with the Ducati Desmosedici GP8 look likely to remain a mystery, but today´s Paddock Press brings in another prspective on the Italian´s plight. Mediaset´s Alberto Porta thinks that Melandri had underestimated the adaptation process required for the tricky 800cc bike, as he explains in the accompanying video.

`For me, the reason is that Marco started his new adventure with Ducati - an Italian bike for an Italian rider- in the wrong way, thinking the situation was simple, thinking `I see what Casey did with this bike, so I can do the same´, says Porta.

`It was the worst way to start, and we saw the situation was getting more complicated with each test and later on race-by-race. With Marco, if he loses confidence in himself, he loses all his power; he has incredible talent but his mind is very delicate.´