New Bridgestone front tyre helps Melandri

Marco Melandri reckons a new construction Bridgestone front tyre was the major reason why he clocked the fastest time on the opening day of the French GP at Le Mans.

The Italian shrugged aside his dismal early season form to top the timesheets with a best time of 1.35.319 in today’s two free practice sessions.

Melandri has endured a torrid time so far in 2007 and is yet to register his first podium, but he told MCN in Le Mans this afternoon: “I’m pretty happy. We didn’t make such a big change to the bike and like in China the bike is working pretty good for me.

“But we had so much chatter from the front in Shanghai that I don’t have here. Bridgestone brought me a different construction front tyre and it helps me with the confidence to flick the bike into the corner while still on the brakes.”

Melandri said the biggest change was a softer construction and he added: “In China there is so much stress on the front tyre that we had to have a hard front. But here we can go a little bit softer and the feeling is so much better. Today I worked a lot on the suspension and geometry for the balance of the bike. I used a very hard front fork spring in China because it was only way to have a little bit less chatter. But to stop the bike was so difficult. Now I’ve gone back to the softer spring, and with the new front tyre, that has helped me a lot.”

Melandri said it was hard to explain Honda’s sudden return to form with Dani Pedrosa and Carlos Checa finishing immediately behind him on the timesheets.

“I have nothing new but the character of this track is much better than I expected. The small hairpins help us a little bit for the power delivery. When you touch the throttle you pick up the bike and can open full throttle so if the engine is very aggressive we don’t think about it too much in this kind of corner.”

Melandri also told MCN that a lack of a long straight to expose Honda’s current horsepower deficit had helped the performance of the RC212V 800.

“On the main straight in the first four gears you get a lot of wheelie so Ducati and Yamaha can’t use all of there power so this helps us too. Our bike is pretty good too change direction and braking, “added Melandri, who said he hoped to have some new parts to test on Monday.