Marco Melandri
Marco Melandri ( born August 7, 1982 in Ravenna, Emilia -Romagna, Italy ) is an Italian motorcycle racer.
He was on Aprilia World Champion in the 250 cc class of the Motorcycle World Championship in 2002. Since 2011 he has been active in the FIM Superbike World Championship.
- 2.1 Title
- 2.2 In the World Motorcycle Championship 2.2.1 Grand Prix wins
- 3.1 External links
- 3.2 Notes and references
Career
Marco Melandri was launched in 1997 for the first time in the 125 cc class of the Motorcycle World Championships and won already in his debut season, the Dutch TT. In the 2002 season, Melandri won at the age of 20 years, Aprilia became the youngest driver in history to the world title in the 250 cc class.
For the 2003 season, he switched to the MotoGP class to Yamaha. In the first race of the season he broke a leg in a serious accident, falling some runs out. The following season was less successful.
2005 season started Melandri for the team of former World Champion Fausto Gresini Honda on. He won the last two races of the season, thus securing the vice - championship. In the 2006 season he was on the same team, the Grand Prix in Turkey, winning in France and Australia, and thus secure the fourth place in the championship. In 2007, Marco Melandri took up for the Gresini team in MotoGP class, and finished the season with three podium finishes in fifth place.
In the 2008 season Melandri started for the Ducati factory team in the 2009 season he has gone for Kawasaki at the start, after he had already agreed before the summer break with Ducati to an early resolution of his ongoing until the end of 2009 two-year contract.
In his 207 starts in the Motorcycle World Championship arrive Marco Melandri 22 wins, 62 podiums, nine pole positions and 16 fastest laps.
Superbike World Championship
For the 2011 season moved to Marco Melandri Yamaha World Superbike Team in the FIM Superbike World Championship. He started at the side of the Irishman Eugene Laverty replaced and Cal Crutchlow, who joined the team Tech 3 in MotoGP class. The Italians drove in 26 races a four race wins and a total of 15 podium finishes and was behind Carlos Checa Vice World Champion.
After Yamaha gave up his involvement in the World Superbike Championship at the end of the 2011 season, Melandri moved to the 2012 season for the BMW factory team, where he formed a driver pairing with Briton Leon Haslam. The Italian won six races and was third behind championship Max Biaggi (Aprilia ) and Tom Sykes ( Kawasaki ). A better placement prevented a total of six failures in 25 races. After BMW end of the season closed down its operations team and the official representative in the World Superbike Championship, leaving the Italian BMW Importer, remained faithful to the manufacturer Melandri in 2013 and joined the Team BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK. He drove to the side of Chaz Davies again a S 1000 RR. With WM- fourth Melandri was again the best BMW driver.
From 2014 season Marco Melandri factory driver at Aprilia will be. He replaced Eugene Laverty.
Statistics
Title
In the World Motorcycle Championship
Grand Prix victories
In the Superbike World Championship
(As of February 26, 2014)