Melandri downplays testing problems

The 25-year-old Italian has consistently failed to match the pace of his world champion teammate Casey Stoner since his switch from Gresini Honda, but Melandri believes that his pace in testing is not representative of his potential this weekend.

"We've worked hard over the winter to try and improve my feeling with the bike and even though we still have work to do I feel better now," said Melandri.

"I actually think that our potential is much higher than we've shown up to now, also because in all of the tests we have done we've concentrated on finding a race setting on race tyres, not just one fast lap."

Melandri's problems with the Ducati have centred on a lack of feeling from the rear tyre and, while this is improving, the Italian admits this is still a problem.

"It is true that we are still lacking in some areas but we're ready and prepared to work hard to improve," he added.

Stoner, who scored his maiden MotoGP victory at Qatar last year, has declared himself satisfied with preparations ahead of the season opener.

"The Ducati engineers have made a few small changes to the bike over the winter that have produced a notable general improvement," he said.

"The GP8 has better acceleration in low revs and the set-up changes we made at Phillip Island have improved its performance on the exit of corners.

"The Bridgestone tyres have worked well at all of the tracks we've tested at, including the night test in Qatar, so from that perspective I'm also really happy."

Stoner added that tyre temperature would play a key role this weekend, the first MotoGP event to run both qualifying and the race at night time under floodlights.

"It is going to be fun to race at night but for me it won't be a completely new experience because I already did a couple of speedway and dirt-track races at night when I was a junior back in Australia," he said.

"Temperature will be an important factor, though, especially as far as the tyres are concerned because at 11 o'clock when we start qualifying and the race it is really cold. We'll have to wait and see if the conditions are the same as they were for the test."