Former 250cc World Champion Marco Melandri made an ’emotional’ debut at the Aruba.it Ducati team this week at MotorLand Aragon during a two-day 2017 pre-season test.
The Italian rider has been on the sidelines since departing from the Gresini Aprilia squad halfway through a woeful 2015 campaign in MotoGP. Unable to secure a ride in WorldSBK for 2016 despite offering his services for free, Melandri and Ducati were able to strike a deal for the 2017 season.
Melandri completed 118 laps of the Aragon circuit over the two days and found his feet on the Panigale R pretty quickly. He set a best time of 1m50.7s on Thursday, which impressively was only three tenths of a second off the pace set by his teammate Chaz Davies, and just under a second down on World Champion Jonathan Rea who topped the time sheets.
The Italian admits that he is struggling under braking despite making progress in this area today, and says that he ‘still has to make the most of my strengths as a rider’ on the bike. But he was nonetheless happy with the overall package and will look to make further strides at the next test in Jerez next week.
“It has been an emotional experience to step on the bike with the team colours and make my debut with the new crew,” he said.
“This two-day test turned out to be challenging and productive. I quickly found the feeling on the bike, and overall we’re not far from the front, especially in terms of pace. We still have room for improvement, which is normal at this stage, but we know what areas we must focus on. We still struggle a bit under braking, despite having made huge strides today to this end, and I still have to make the most of my strengths as a rider.
“That said, I’m really pleased with the bike overall, both in terms of engine and chassis, and I’m also getting closer to an optimal shape physically. Surely, the trend has been positive throughout. In the next tests, we’ll try to define a few more upgrades, but we can start working on the details now.”
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