MotoGP – Preview Jerez – Melandri: "We have to work: we can and must improve"

We can and must do better. This is the thought and the goal to pursue for Marco Melandri, still far from defining himself as "competitive" aboard the official Ducati. The man from Ravenna will thus find himself at Jerez next week: a friendly track, where he has almost always performed well and where he has covered more kilometers over the winter with the Ducati Desmosedici GP8. Compared to Losail, he should go much better: here's what he declared on the eve of the event in Andalusia.

“Jerez is one of the tracks where we tested the most during the winter and where we were able to experiment with many different set up solutions. As far as we're concerned, it's certainly a fairly challenging track but apart from that, I think the first race was very important for me to understand certain things, more than what happened during the tests. I definitely need to choose a direction in testing and follow it without making too many changes so as to be ready when it comes time to fit the qualifying tyres. Starting further up the front allows you to be faster from the first laps, which didn't happen in Qatar. But although the first race was certainly not at the level we would have liked, it also gave us some positive responses, especially in the second part, so we have to work because we can and must improve.".

Marco Melandri's best result in Jerez de la Frontera in MotoGP dates back to 2005, when he finished third on his debut with the Honda Gresini, behind Valentino Rossi and Sete Gibernau (who came into contact at the last corner due to the now famous “shoulder”).