A brilliant race to second place in the wet-dry conditions of Sunday’s race at the Grand Prix de France was a massive achievement for Marco Melandri and everyone involved in the Hayate Racing team.

The Italian rider’s Crew Chief Andrea Dosoli, who worked for the factory Kawasaki team for several years, has been one of the key players in putting a competitive Ninja ZX-RR on the grid in the early part of 2009, when over the winter Melandri’s future in MotoGP looked to be in doubt.

Thanks to the support of Dosoli and his staff Melandri has been a revelation in recent weeks, bouncing back from his Ducati nightmare with good results so far this season, culminating in his first podium since 2007 on Sunday.

“It was a fantastic result,” said Dosoli. “Marco was fast in the wet and the dry. We were not 100% sure about the wet setting, but I guess it was like that for everybody because we had no data to work on. Marco made a good start and kept up a good pace in the wet. He changed the bike maybe a little bit too early, but Jorge Lorenzo was incredibly fast so it was impossible to stay with him.”

Summarising the atmosphere in the Hayate pit-box he added, “The motivation in the team is high. Everybody wants to get good results and at the moment that is happening so we are quite happy. This podium result is like a dream but we have to be realistic and we believe that our potential is top eight.”

Looking ahead to the fifth round of the season in Italy, which is always a special occasion for Melandri, Dosoli concluded, “Mugello is his home race and we will try our best to give him the strongest package possible so that he can enjoy himself again in front of the Italian fans.”