Melandri keen to leave team on a high

The Italian has had a difficult season on the Gresini Honda, but qualified on the front row at Sepang today.

"It has not been easy for me to be very focused on the last two races because I'm actually thinking a little bit about next year," Melandri confessed.

"But I want to try to have fun riding this bike.

"(Team boss) Fausto (Gresini) gave me a very good chance over the last three years to grow up, personally, and I appreciate that. I would like to finish pretty good to give him good memories of me."

Melandri is confident that he will be in good shape in tomorrow's race, where his Bridgestones are expected to offer an advantage over the Michelin runners, although he has not yet finalised his tyre choice.

"The problem is we have only good tyres, so it's not easy to choose..." he joked.

"I didn't do more than 15 laps so I'm not sure which is the best for the race. I want to do some more laps in the morning to understand a bit more about it."

After a summer blighted by a series of injuries, Melandri added that he was now fully fit and had no concerns about the physical demands of tomorrow's race, even if the extremely hot temperatures continued.

"It's going to be a very tough race. We came here from Australia and the weather looks like we came from full winter to full summer, so it's not easy," Melandri said.

"But from three weeks ago I started to feel very good and have been training well, so I'm okay."