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At the recent World Superbike Championship opening round, held at Phillip Island we were able to catch up with BMW’s Marco Melandri.

Melandri took a well earnt third place in the second race, overcoming the super quick Aprillias.

Last year, Melandri was strong but couldn’t overcome the strong Max Biaggi and surprising Tom Sykes on board the Kawasaki.  Melandri is no stranger to Championship challenges, having won the World 250cc Championship in 2002.  He went onto race 131 times in MotoGP, winning five times.  His best MotoGP effort was championship runner up in 2005 on board of a Honda.

After struggling for a couple of years, particularly in his final year in 2010, he switched to World SBK in 2011.  He immediately achieved success and was runner up in the Championship in 2011 on a Yamaha.  In 2012 he was third on board the factory BMW.  He comes into 2013 as a title favourite.

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Interview by Sam Tickell, February 2013

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