Wild card MotoGP star Marco Melandri after finishing 5th in the first practice session and 4th in qualifying despite three tail spins and another spin in Race 1 that dropped the MotoGP star to the end of the field, almost took a shock victory in Race 2.

Gaining the advantage of the reverse grid in the second race, Melandri came within four laps of a Speedcar Series victory under the lights at Losail in Qatar on Saturday night, but a mechanical failure took him out, handing the victory to Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Melandri, who started only his second-ever car race from pole position, rocketed away at the start and built up a 7.5sec lead by lap nine, which was when Liuzzi passed Thomas Biagi for second place.

“I was concentrating on not making any mistakes, but my gear changes were becoming more difficult, which didn’t make it easy,” said Melandri. “Then, all of a sudden, there were no more gears and I was out.”

That gifted the lead to Liuzzi, who had been guiding Melandri on his learning curve all weekend, and he stroked home ahead of yesterday’s winner Gianni Morbidelli.

“It was very lucky for me that Marco went out, and unlucky for him,” said Liuzzi. “I had a lot more understeer than in the first race, and Marco was driving really well.”

Source | speedcarseries

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