Marco Melandri mastered the tough conditions at Australia's Phillip Island this weekend to take his 3rd win of the year at the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.
The Italian took his Fortuna Honda from 7th on the grid through the changing weather to the win.
The start of the race was delayed due to rain on the warm up lap. The officials then declared the race a wet start. However, none of the riders or teams deemed it wet enough to run with intermediate or wet tires.
Shinya Nakano was the early front runner. He managed to put 5 seconds between him and the pack. However, the heavens opened again, and this time it was hard enough to wet the track significantly.
Most of the field came into the pits, and for the first time in MotoGP history the riders left on their spare bikes with wet weather tyres.
Shinya made the mistake of trying to keep his slick shod Kawasaki out on the track. He was physically struggling to get the ZX-RR back around to the pits to change over to his wet bike. As a consequence, Sete Gibernau — who started 12th (because of the team struggling with the Bridgestone Qualifiers on Saturday) on the Ducati — managed to take the lead.
Lap 8 saw Rossi's teammate Colin Edwards fall and get carried away on a stretcher. He was not seriously hurt, and should be back for next weekend's Japanese Motegi race.
The local boy, Chris Vermeulen on the Suzuki GSR-V, showed that the rain is certainly an equalizing factor. He managed to get the Bridgestone shod Suzuki into second place, and although he was catching the Ducati, he could not stop the Michelin powered Melandri from eating into the gap.
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