Melandri looks forward to leaving Honda

The Italian, who for most of the year has lamented problems with his RCV212 bike, does not hide the fact that he's longing to make a move away from Honda after Ducati announced a deal for next year with him at last July's race in Laguna Seca.

There are four more races to go to the end of the season.

"The engine is the last of our problems at the moment," Melandri told Italia1 television, after he finished the Portuguese Grand Prix in fifth place.

"Unfortunately we had the problems we had expected. Since the first test with the 800cc, on every track where you need to change down lots of gears under braking, we have plenty of engine braking problems and the bike's rear hops a lot. This also influences the front.

"That's what happened here, and it got worse lap after lap. We also had chatter problems and I was very slow already in the first laps. It's a shame because we could have had a good race. The tyres were working well, even though we had perhaps a too-hard rear.

"Let's just wait four more races and then we turn the page," concluded Melandri.