Source: Aprilia Racing.

Experienced Italian Marco Melandri’s return to MotoGP has been a difficult challenge this pre-season, again lingering at the bottom of the timesheets on Tuesday at Sepang 2.

Melandri tackled the day by continuing his comparison of the two bikes with different characteristics, one decidedly closer to the Superbike he rode last year and the other an evolution of the RS-GP in the version used during the autumn tests in Spain.

For Melandri the goal is to find the right feeling with the Bridgestone control tyres, an inevitable process before being able to push to the maximum.

“Today we continued the work we started yesterday, starting with the SBK-derived bike and then moving on to the RS-GP,” Melandri said. Unfortunately the time sheets are still not rewarding us. I still don’t have that feeling that will let me push and ride the way I’d like to.

“We aren’t struggling in any particular area; it’s just the overall feeling that needs to improve before we’ll be able to get our times down. Tomorrow we’ll continue the tests. I’m certainly not expecting a revolution, but any improvement will be crucial.”

Melandri ended day two in Malaysia 27th overall, his 2m04.313s lap time two seconds from Aprilia Racing Team Gresini teammate Alvaro Bautista and almost 4.5 seconds from pace-setter Marc Marquez.