Former 250cc World Champion Marco Melandri To Race With Aprilia In MotoGP 2015

The lineup is complete for the team that will take Aprilia into its rookie year in the 2015 MotoGP World Championship. Following the announcement of Alvaro Bautista earlier, joining him will be Marco Melandri who has officially been signed, fresh from the conclusion of the 2014 Superbike season. In that season with Aprilia Racing, Melandri took 6 wins and another 5 podiums that contributed significantly to Aprilia’s World Superbike (WSBK) Manufacturers’ title win.

Romano Albesiano, Aprilia Racing Director says, “With Marco Melandri the last piece of the puzzle has been put into place for Aprilia’s participation in next year’s MotoGP season. These have been very intense and exciting days where in just a few hours we went from the last round of Superbike at Losail to this new adventure in MotoGP. We are very pleased to announce Marco’s signing because this completes our team in the best way possible on the eve of a great challenge: with Melandri we now have an all-Italian bike-rider duo. We are moving into MotoGP a year ahead of schedule on wings of enthusiasm because of the double world Superbike championships we have just won. We moved our schedule up because we want the most demanding tracks and the most competitive championship in the world to gauge the quality of our work. Aprilia’s 54 world titles, the hundreds of wins on tracks all over the world give proof of technical skills and a winning attitude that deserve the limelight of the most prestigious stage.”

 Born in 1982, Marco Melandri began his career at a very young age in minimoto, winning the Italian Championship in 1992 and 1994. Moving to 125CC he became Italian Champion for the category in 1997, a title that allowed him to début in the “eighth litre” MotoGP class. After earning third place in 1998 and second palce in 1999, Marco moved up a category to ride a powerful 250 two-stroke with Aprilia. This was the beginning of a Melandri-Aprilia match up where he finished fifth in the rider standings in 2000, third in 2001 and World Champion (with 9 wins and 2 podiums out of 16 races) in 2002.

Rising to the premier MotoGP category, Melandri immediately asserted his competitiveness, finishing out the year in second place. In the various MotoGP categories, Melandri has won 22 races and has been on the podium 62 times.