Melandri Struggles, Checa goes fastest

Ducati brought four Desmmosedici’s to Catalunya yesterday, March 13, to join the Honda Pons, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Proton, and WCM teams at the circuit for a packed session ahead of the official IRTA winter test this weekend.

Marco Melandri on the Fortuna Yamaha M1 could only manage a best time of 1:45.7, 1.4 seconds under the circuit’s best lap set by Max Biaggi last year, as the shoulder injury he received at Estoril two weeks ago continued to plague him.

” I feel like I have a real lack of power in the right shoulder. It still is not perfect, but this is surely the best way to go about getting it right. I can’t do any more than five circuits at a time. By that time I feel weakness on my right side, so this tells me I am still short of being completely fit to ride.

” With the day’s rest on Friday before the Winter Test begins, I think I should be feeling much better than I do now. ”

Carlos Checa got a fastest lap of 1:44.9 but brought an early end to his ride when he crashed out on his 54th lap. The Spaniard wasn’t sure what happened, admitting that he could just have been pushing too hard. He will be back on the track with a rebuilt bike for the start of the IRTA tests at the circuit on Saturday March 15.

Gauloises Yamaha rider Alex Barros got the fastest lap with a time of 1:44.4 and Ducati rider Loris Capriossi, using last year’s Michelin tyres, was close behind with a time of 1:44.7 having managed to set up both of his race machines the way he wanted.

Team-mate Troy Bayliss was less happy with his time of 1:47.2 but admitted that he found the track challenging. This was his first visit to Catalunya and he put in 95 laps to try and get to know it better.

Proton riders Jeremy McWilliams and Nobuatsu Aoki both experienced gearbox problems with their two-strokes but managed to get in enough laps to test a number of different tyre compounds.

Kenny Roberts spent the day collecting data on his new machine, but admitted that they were further behind on development of the Suzuki GSV-R than they should be. He said: We are probably a bit behind but we’re confident we can get up to speed. We’re starting from scratch and it’s normal that we are a little behind the frontrunners. The Michelin tyres are fantastic. Now we just have to get the rest of the bike working well with them ”

Full report from this weekend’s IRTA tests in MCN, out Wednesday March 19