Last season when Marco Melandri was a factory Ducati, rider he won the first two WorldSBK races Is Australia on his last-of-the-line big Panigale V-twins, but was plagued by a bike that wobbled fit to throw him off down all the long straights.
Despite running a four-cylinder R1 in a nearly official GRT Yamaha team this year he found the same problem on the long straights at Buriram.
He was still in sixth place overall, last of four Yamaha riders crowding the top two of Bautista and Rea, but he was a worried man.
“Four Yamahas together but I am very worried because I have the same problem as last year,” Melandri told bikesportnews.com. “The bike on the straight is very unstable.
“I cannot understand why and I had one lap and from the second, with a new tyre the bike is not so bad, but from the second the bike is getting worse and worse. On the straight it is so unstable.”
The obvious go-to explanation for Melandri is that his light weight and small stature cannot damp out the huge forces being generated as well as the other bigger guys. He possibly agrees, in the absence of any better explanation right now.
“For sure something like that because it is a completely different bike from last year but exactly the same problem,” he affirmed. “That is very strange so for sure my size, my weight with the casing of the tyre maybe, rebound - I do not understand.”
