page_title: Marco Melandri
section_title: MotoGP World Championship
hierarchical_section_title: Marco Melandri / Career / MotoGP World Championship
caption_attribution_description: Marco Melandri, Phillip Island, 2007
context_page_description: Marco Melandri is an Italian motorcycle road racer. After winning the 2002 250 cc World Championship, he competed in the MotoGP class from 2003 to 2010, claiming five wins and finishing second overall in 2005.
  Melandri switched to the Superbike World Championship in 2011, earning 22 wins over six seasons. He returned brieflyto the MotoGP in 2015. In July 2019, he announced his intended retirement at the end of the season. In July 2020, the Italian announced his return to the WSBK.
context_section_description: After securing the 250cc world title in 2002, Melandri moved up to MotoGP class to spearhead Yamaha factory team alongside Carlos Checa in 2003 replacing the departing Max Biaggi. The Yamaha was less competitive than Honda and Ducati, and although Melandri at times showed good speed, he struggled to turn this into good results. He finished the season in fifteenth position without collecting any wins or podiums.
  He joined Yamaha's satellite team, Tech 3 in 2004 alongside Norick Abe in order to make way for the incoming Valentino Rossi. This season, he again struggled to get top results. Although he managed to collect two consecutive podiums, a series of crashes and retirements kept him out of the top 10 in overall standings. He finished the season in twelfth position.
  Released from his Yamaha contract after the 2004 season, Melandri was the surprise choice of boss Fausto Gresini to join Sete Gibernau in the Movistar Honda team for the 2005 MotoGP campaign. Melandri was successful with Movistar Honda in 2005, with a consistent run of podium finishes early in the season, ultimately taking his first two wins in the final two races of 2005 to clinch second place in the championship. In doing so, he was the first Honda rider to win back-to-back races for nearly two years, winning the final two rounds of the MotoGP Championship at Istanbul and in Valencia.  Although he never really challenged his best friend Valentino Rossi for the title, he finished the season strongly as runner-up, with a total of two wins and five other podiums.
  Melandri rode for Gresini's Fortuna Honda team alongside Toni Elías in the 2006 season. With Rossi struggling to find consistency, he was a major challenger, along with Ducati's Loris Capirossi and Honda riders Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa. He again won at Istanbul, despite starting from fourteenth on the grid. He managed further wins at Le Mans, France and Phillip Island, Australia.  He finished the season in fourth position, just one point behind Capirossi.
  In 2007, Melandri and Elias remained in the Honda Gresini team, now sponsored by Hannspree. Honda's 800cc machine was not competitive. Melandri finished on the podium at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Le Mans –  at this point he and works rider Dani Pedrosa were the only Honda riders with multiple podiums. He ultimately finished fifth overall, second only to Pedrosa among the Honda riders.
  Immediately after Melandri's 3rd-place finish in the 2007 USA's MotoGP round, Ducati announced that he would join its factory team alongside Casey Stoner for 2008 and 2009. But 2008 proved disastrous, with a run of uncompetitive runs often leaving him behind the semi-works Alice Team bikes of Toni Elías and Sylvain Guintoli. At Assen he qualified last and ran there throughout. A rumoured mid-season move to Kawasaki did not occur, however Melandri announced that he would be joining Kawasaki Racing Team for the 2009 MotoGP season to ride alongside his new teammate John Hopkins on 19 August. He then ended the season in a lacklustre 17th position.
  Kawasaki pulled its factory involvement for 2009, leading to fears that Melandri would not have a ride, however a rescue package was agreed to allow Melandri to run the bike for a one-bike semi-works Hayate Racing team, despite his concerns over the bike's poor rear traction. In 2009 Melandri achieved his first podium since 2007 with his 2nd-place finish at the wet French motorcycle Grand Prix. His only other top six finishes were in the first three races, as the team tailed off bike development and Melandri finished tenth overall. At Brno he battled Mika Kallio for sixth before a penultimate-lap collision between the two.
  For 2010, Melandri returned to Gresini Honda, with a factory-spec RC212V bike from the start. Full factory support had sometimes been promised, but not provided, during his first Gresini spell. The team made set-up errors in its initial testing.
caption: Melandri at the 2007 Australian Grand Prix
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