Marco Melandri kicked off his World Superbike adventure in the best possible way over the weekend when the Yamaha World Superbike man put in a great performance to take the final podium place in race 2 at Phillip Island. Melandri's first points came at the end of a terrific scrap with his former GP sparring partner, the reigning champion Max Biaggi, which went right down to the chequered flag."It's nice to be back on the podium! I wanted to challenge Biaggi for second but in the end my body was slower than my mind at the end of the race, it felt a bit dangerous to make some passes so I was happy to settle for third."
It was a good start for Melandri and the Italian can now focus on getting his recently-operated shoulder back to full fitness before the next round at Donington at the end of the month.
"I'm pretty happy with the end results of today, although I wasn't too happy about race one. We've been struggling all week with a rear grip issue, which could be seen in race one. I think we made a good job before race two, changing our set up to deal with it and we were a little bit more aware of our potential afterwards. The bike was a lot better and I felt a lot more comfortable."
Following his Phillip Island results, a fifth and a third, Melandri is now in third place in the table, level on points with Leon Haslam.
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