Melandri's woe continues at Jerez

The Italian has struggled with his Ducati since pre-season testing and was 2.8 seconds slower than Jorge Lorenzo's record-breaking pole position lap in today's qualifying session.

"I can only say sorry to my fans and the Ducati fans, I don't think I've ever been last before, not even on the Playstation," he told Italia1 television.

"At the moment I'm not able to like any solution on the bike and, evidently, the bike doesn't like me. I just can't ride it and feel at ease.

"I've tried to change, by being more aggressive and then by being smoother, but the result doesn't change. I shifted the weight from the front to the rear but I'm still as slow.

"You can't manage the engine, sometimes you feel the power and other times you don't. The bike is a bit unpredictable to ride."

Melandri was briefly encouraged by his performance in practice this morning, but struggled again right from the start of qualifying.

"It's strange because my last run this morning was good and I wasn't far off the rest. But this afternoon the bike changed completely and it was unrideable. I fell while I was going really slowly on an outlap. I took the spare bike after that but it had a few things I didn't like.

"The only positive thing is that things went better in the race in Qatar. I didn't go quick, but better. I couldn't do well at the start but then I adapted my pace and wasn't far from fifth or sixth.

"But here it's very difficult for our bike, and the tyres aren't helping because we are struggling a lot. For me every tyre works the same: I never have grip.

"I'm stiff at riding and I never follow the same lines. I don't think I was this uncomfortable the first time I ever rode a MotoGP bike."