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The Italian rider suffered with poor rear wheel grip, which caused problems when exiting corners. As well as problems there were improvements for the Fortuna team though, with increased feel from the frontend of the bike being achieved - something Melandri had been working on at the previous Sepang test in January.

Marco Melandri - 2'01.66 

"Today was very strange for us. We lack traction off the corners and the bike is sliding. The feeling I had with the bike is totally different from the last test here at Sepang. Part of the reason is that track conditions are lot different but not entirely. At the moment I don't really understand this. We tried new tyres from Michelin but they did not work here as well as the tyres we used last time we were here. The positive point about today was the front end, it's better than before in the fast corners and my lap time was also fast for the track conditions. We have two more days here and we have some work to do." 

Toni Elias - 2'03.52 

Teammate Toni Elias also had problems during the course of the day, with his final laptime of 2'03.52 placing him 12th fastest.

"I'm not so happy today. I don't really have problems to speak of it's just that I need more time on the bike, run a lot more kilometres. Here at Sepang I have to put in as many laps as I can, I have to feel more comfortable on the bike than I am at the moment before I can be fast." 

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