MotoGP- Suppo welcomes Melandris resurgence

Ducati team boss Livio Suppo said he was pleased to see his former rider Marco Melandri back on the podium in the French Grand Prix.Melandri endured a dreadful season in the factory Ducati squad last year, failing to match team-mate Casey Stoner and only once finishing in the top five. His multi-year contract was terminated early in favour of a move to Kawasaki, which became a ride for the private Hayate team when the Kawasaki factory pulled out of MotoGP.Despite low expectations at the start of the season, Melandri has proved to be a revelation on the Hayate bike, and followed up top six finishes at Motegi and Jerez with a superb second place at Le Mans today.Suppo said Ducati never had any doubts about Melandri's talent so he was pleased to see him back to his best."I'm really happy," he told the BBC. "Last year with Marco didn't work at all. But we knew he had competitive speed and was a very fast rider."The Ducati boss believes Melandri is showing that he is better suited to being in an underdog situation."He needed different motivation and no pressure," Suppo said. "At this moment he has no pressure because he's on a bike that nobody believes is a good bike, but maybe it is."Not being made to do a comparison with a team-mate is a totally different situation for him. I'm personally happy for him that he's doing well."

Date published : 17 May 200915:43:29

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pos	name	pts
1	Valentino Rossi	306
2	Jorge Lorenzo	261
3	Dani Pedrosa	234
4	Casey Stoner	220
5	Colin Edwards	161
6	Andrea Dovizioso	160
7	Toni Elias	115
8	Alex de Angelis	111
9	Loris Capirossi	110
10	Marco Melandri	108
11	Randy de Puniet	106
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13	Nicky Hayden	104
14	James Toseland	92
15	Mika Kallio	71
16	Niccolo Canepa	38
17	Gábor Talmácsi	19
18	Aleix Espargaró	16
19	Sete Gibernau	12
20	Ben Spies	9
21	Yuki Takahashi	9

pos	name	pts
1	Hiroshi Aoyama	261
2	Héctor Barberá	239
3	Marco Simoncelli	231
4	Alvaro Bautista	218
5	Mattia Pasini	128
6	Raffaele De Rosa	122
7	Thomas Luthi	120
8	Mike Di Meglio	107
9	Hector Faubel	105
10	Alex Debon	101
11	Roberto Locatelli	85
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14	Karel Abraham	74
15	Lukas Pesek	74
16	Alex Baldolini	41
17	Shoya Tomizawa	32
18	Gábor Talmácsi	28
19	Shuhei Aoyama	27
20	Aleix Espargaró	22
21	Valentin Debise	18
22	Imre Toth	12
23	Balázs Németh	11
24	Vladimir Leonov	9
25	Axel Pons	3
26	Bastien Chesaux	3
27	Toby Markham	2
28	Kazuki Watanabe	2
29	Steve Bonsey	1

pos	name	pts
1	Julian Simon	289
2	Bradley Smith	223.5
3	Nicolas Terol	179.5
4	Pol Espargaró	174.5
5	Sergio Gadea	141
6	Sandro Cortese	130
7	Andrea Iannone	125.5
8	Marc Márquez	94
9	Joan Olive	91
10	Stefan Bradl	85
11	Simone Corsi	81
12	Jonas Folger	73
13	Dominique Ägerter	70.5
14	Efrén Vazquez	54
15	Scott Redding	50.5
16	Takaaki Nakagami	43
17	Daniel Webb	38.5
18	Esteve Rabat	37
19	Lorenzo Zanetti	37
20	Johann Zarco	32.5
21	Randy Krummenacher	32
22	Luis Salom	21
23	Marcel Schrötter	18
24	Tomoyoshi Koyama	17
25	Michael Ranseder	9
26	Lorenzo Savadori	7
27	Jasper Iwema	3
28	Riccardo Moretti	3
29	Cameron Beaubier	3
30	Gregory Di Carlo	2
31	Marvin Fritz	2
32	Martin Glossop	2
33	Daniel Kartheininger	1

MotoGP- Suppo welcomes Melandris resurgence

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