Melandri praises team after fifth place

The Italian, who won the Istanbul race in 2005 and 2006, only started 14th this year after two crashes on Saturday.

"I put myself in a hole this weekend because I fell twice stupidly and lost a bit of confidence," he told Italia1 television.

"I need to thank my team for taking me back on the right route yesterday. Today we started with a set-up similar to what we usually have and this morning the bike wasn't bad."

Melandri was heavily involved in the race-long, multi-bike battle for third place, and felt he might have reached the podium but for a muffler problem in the final laps.

"Shame I lost a lot of time overtaking Nicky (Hayden) and especially (John) Hopkins," he said.

"When I finally did, (Alex) Barros reached me too. His bike was very fast and I had a technical problem because a muffler broke making me lose a lot of power in the last three laps.

"So I couldn't fight for the podium but I'm happy because seeing where we were yesterday, at least today I managed to ride."