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2011 World Superbike
Newly signed Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike rider Marco Melandri had some "serious" pain in his shoulder this week, but everything was deemed OK after a check-up.
The former MotoGP rider, who replaces Cal Crutchlow on the Yamaha YZF-R1 for 2011 WSBK, said he had his shoulder scanned for injury, and the test results showed nothing.
Melandri, 28, jokingly commented on Twitter.
Marco Melandri says: "I had a big pain with no reason, that’s weird. Everything is going good. I’m just getting old. I need to be back on my R1 as soon as possible!"
For 2011, Melandri will be teammates with Eugene Laverty. The Italian Melandri replaces Crutchlow who stays within the Yamaha family, moving to MotoGP to replace Ben Spies on The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 M1 bike.
Ben Spies moves to the Factory Fiat Yamaha team to ride the vacant M1 motorcycle developed by Valentino Rossi, who will be riding the Ducati GP11 next MotoGP racing season.
Following his one-day superbike test in Valencia in November, Melandri had his first proper opportunity to work through some set up developments on his new Yamaha R1 superbike at the tests in Phillip Island in early December.
Melandri rider improved steadily over the test days, making steps each day as the team continued to modify the physical set up of the bike to suit him.
Melandri is a former 250cc GP World Champion and has finished as highly as second in the MotoGP Championship with five MotoGP motorcycle race victories to date in his career and a further 10 250cc GP victories.
