Melandri takes a pop at Rossi

FORMER MOTOGP winner Marco Melandri has had a pop at reigning world champion Valentino Rossi via his Italian online blog marcomelandri.it

Melandri believes Rossi was fed bespoke tyres by Michelin before the French company were ousted from the MotoGP series after Bridgestone tyres won the sole supplier contract.

Moreover, Melandri believes this is the reason Rossi's domination of the series is slowly diminishing:

'This is down to the fact that they don't make tyres anymore just for him,' wrote Melandri.

'This statement is meant to say that maybe Michelin, in 2004, had more than a small hand in the results. More like an arm.'

There's more: Melandri goes on to say he believes Lorenzo's 'armchair' celeberations at this year's MotoGP from Le Mans had a more sinister message:

'Taking a closer look at it, you start to see more: the chair was yellow... like Valentino's yellow... which would say: "I, Lorenzo, am taking your place on your yellow chair".'

When questioned about the stunt at yesterday's MotoGP press conference, Lorenzo looked puzzled, replying:

"But the chair was green."

The weather forecast from Mugello says Sunday's race will be a scorcher. We reckon Melandri's accusations will have upped the temperature by a few more degrees.

Via Crash, Julian Ryder