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Marco Melandri had his first chance to see how he weighed up against his future opponents yesterday in the first day of winter testing at Aragon. It was the Italian’s third outing on the Ducati Panigale R and after the on-track action was done for the day, he caught up with WorldSBK.com to evaluate day one.

“Yeah I was very excited to test with all the guys today, it was a good day,” said Melandri. “I think my Ducati is working pretty good here in Aragon. The feeling I had in Valencia is about the same as today, so we knew what we had to work on.  I think lap by lap I’m feeling better and better on the bike. I still have a long way to go until the first round but I’m feeling very happy.”

Melandri completed 57 laps of MotorLand on the 2016 Ducati throughout the day. The Italian revealed that there’s still a lot of work to do on day two but he’s confident it will all fall into place.

“We tested some new parts for the 2017 bike on the chassis and on day two we will try some things again,” explained Melandri. “We will try a different engine, a lot of things are coming so it’s pretty busy for me. I still have to learn the bike and the team and make the test but it’s been very good. I still have to improve mainly in the breaking area, I think I’m not very consistent there but we have to see, even the electronics are new so we have to see to understand how it’s all working together. I think we have a good gap where we can improve but we’ll see.”

It’s been two years since Melandri competed in WorldSBK and one year since he competed in a world Championship. The Italian admitted the beginning will be a challenge but he has a lot of motivation to get back up to speed quickly considering the impressive results of Davies in the 2016 season.

“For sure I need to try to take back what I lost in the last years,” said Melandri. “The first round will not be easy to do that, the first few laps in the race after a few years of not racing will be difficult but I’m feeling pretty confident. To have the opportunity to bring an Italian brand like Ducati to the top as an Italian rider is a dream for me, so every morning I’m making this my goal. Seeing such good results this year also gives you a lot of confidence. I’m excited and I know my teammate will be the first guy on track and will be one of the strongest on the field but it’s a kind of motivation.”

Melandri and Davies will be back on track today for their final day at Aragon, before they head to Jerez next week for another round of testing.