Marco Melandri

Read about Marco Melandri, including career highlights, pictures and news of the road racer right here at Motorcycle USA.

Marco Melandri was introduced to a mini-bike at the age of six and was soon racing through the national leagues toward bigger titles. In 1997 he became known for winning the Italian 125cc championship and finishing fourth in the European 125cc championship, both when he was only 14. The next year Benetton Honda made him a regular on the 125cc World circuit. An impressive performance at the Assen TT made him the youngest rider at the time to win a Grand Prix. He finished third for the year, and in the next season he missed the Championship title by only one point.

After nearly winning the 125 crown in '98-99, he moved up to the 250 class. He was signed by Aprilia in 2000 to replace Valentino Rossi after he moved into the 500cc championship. Melandri quickly become a fan favorite. Despite struggling with the larger bike he still managed to place fifth overall. The next year he followed with his first Grand Prix win in the class and took third for the season. In 2002 Melandri established himself as one of the premier riders in GP. He dominated the 250 class on his way to his first World Championship. His reward: a factory Yamaha MotoGP ride alongside Carlos Checa on the 4-stroke M1.

The Yamaha bikes struggled to keep pace with their Honda and Ducati competitors, leaving Melandri with just two third-place finishes for the year. He fared no better the next year after moving to the Tech 3 Yamaha satellite team, and consequentially was released from his contract in 2004.

In 2005 Fausto Gresini picked up Melandri to race for the Movistar Honda team alongside Sete Gibernau. Melandri turned out to be a good fit for the Honda RC211V. He racked-up a series of podium finishes and capped the season off with back-to-back wins in Turkey and Valencia, finishing the season as a strong-runner up to the champion, Valentino Rossi. The next year saw him riding beside Toni Elias on Gresini's Fortuna Honda Team. Melandri was right up with the championship leaders when a nasty first-turn pileup at Catalunya spoiled his championship intentions. Instead, Supermarco had to settle for fourth overall. In 2007 the Italian earned fifth place in the championship, and Ducati decided to draft him to ride on its factory 2008 team.

2008 proved disastrous. Bad blood soon developed between the vocal Italian and Marlboro Ducati. He signed a two-year contract with Kawasaki, but Team Green unexpectedly pulled its MotoGP factory support for 2009. Despite this, Melandri contested the 2009 season as a Hayate Racing rider on a Ninja ZX-RR without factory sponsorship, and finished 10th overall. In 2010 the Italian made the move to the San Carlo Gresini squad, but he failed to reach the podium and finished 10th overall for the second consecutive year. 

After disappointing results in GP, Melandri decided to switch to World Superbike for 2011 with Factory Yamaha. The decision quickly proved to be a good one as the Italian earned 4 victories and an additional 15 podiums over the course of his debut season. In the end Melandi finished second overall behind Carlos Checa in the championship.
Following Yamaha’s withdraw from WSB in 2012, Melandri will contend the upcoming season with BMW Motorrad Motorsport.