Marco Melandri will be at Catalunya this weekend and ready to race despite dislocating his shoulder at Assen.

Melandri will clearly still be injured and will be using the Friday practice session to assess the extent of the injury and his fitness, but as things stand, Melandri is aggressively asserting that his goal is to race and be competitive – which is a big ask.

Marco Melandri
“I´m going to Barcelona with the clear objective of putting the disappointments of Silverstone and Assen behind me. I will obviously have to wait and see how I feel on the bike after such a big crash in Holland but my determination to race again is huge. I have had a lot of treatment on the shoulder since Saturday and even though I still won´t be at peak physical fitness I am determined to get back out on track. I really want to build on the progress we made in practice at Assen, where we confirmed our recent progress with the set-up of the bike. I hope I am fit and able to continue the recent good work we´ve been doing so that we can have more to be pleased with by the end of the weekend.”

Marco Simoncelli
“The tyre problem at Assen definitely wasn´t what we wanted! It has halted my progress a little and denied me the opportunity to improve on my result from Silverstone, which is a shame. Anyway, I was happy to have at least finished the race in those conditions. I suppose it was one of those bad experiences that helps you to grow stronger. At Barcelona I want to pick up from where we left off in practice at Assen and put the Dutch TT behind me. I like this track a lot, I have won here in 250 and I´m sure I´ll feel comfortable. My feeling with the bike is improving and thanks to the team and Honda I am making constant progress, the gap to the front guys is getting smaller and I am more and more convinced that I am going to be fighting for top results soon.”

Fausto Gresini
“I hope Barcelona holds more positives for us than Assen did. Simoncelli did well to get to the finish with his tyre in that kind of condition but it was a setback for him in terms of his continual and constant growth. Race by race he learns something new on the bike, he is getting closer to the front and I am convinced that he will soon have something to celebrate. Melandri will be looking to bounce back from the result at Silverstone and the injury at Assen. At Barcelona he´ll get an even better idea of how far he has come with the set-up of the bike. Up until the crash practice went well at Silverstone and Assen and he looked set to be running up front. It didn´t turn out to be the case but his confidence is so high right now that if he is fit then Melandri will be competitive again at Montmelo. ”

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