Marco Melandri has taken his first win in World Superbikes at Donington Park and it has taken the Italian only three races to do so.

Melandri, who made the switch from MotoGP at the end of last season, was in ninth position after the first lap and had to battle past the likes of Max Biaggi (The reigning World Superbike Champion) and Leon Haslem to eventually reach second position.

Jakub Smrz at that time was still 2.6 seconds ahead of Melandri, but the Italian closed the gap within the next five laps to perform a brilliant overtaking maneuver on the Czech rider in the revamped Foggy Esse’s and eased his way home with a 2.4 second gap.

Carlos Checa, who was mid pack in the early stages of the race, managed to finish third, after passing Haslam at the Melbourne Loop on the last lap.

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The reigning Formula 1 World Champion, Sebastian Vettel,  could not have asked for a better start to the defence of his title with a pole position in qualifying on Saturday and then outclassing the rest of the pack on race day to comfortably win the Australian Grand Prix.

Vettel was 2.4s ahead at the end of the opening lap, and simply controlled the pace to win by 22.2s after a problem with the floor of Hamilton’s McLaren caused an off-course moment in Turn One on Lap 32 and cost him some downforce.

At times the Englishman was able to match Vettel’s pace and he did a better job controlling his tyres in the first part, as both ran two-stop strategies in a race in which all the gloomy predictions about Pirelli’s tyres proved completely unfounded.

Behind them, Red Bull’s Mark Webber originally ran third ahead of fast-starting Vitaly Petrov in the Renault, who benefited when McLaren’s Jenson Button kept Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso out wide going into Turn One at the start. As Webber faded after being the first to change tyres, Petrov moved into the third place he maintained throughout as he became the first Russian ever to stand on the podium after an excellent race.

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Casey Stoner won the Qatar MotoGP race for the fourth time in five years finishing ahead of Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo and his Honda teammate Danni Pedrosa.

The new Honda signing could not have asked for a better start to the season, remaining the only the motorcycle rider to have qualified the fastest and then go on to win the race at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, repeating his perfomance of the 2009 race.

Stoner’s replacement at Ducati and seven time MotoGP champion, Valentino Rossi, finished in seventh position. Rossi is still recovering from surgery performed on his shoulder during the off season and there is no doubt that the new Ducati man will bounce back later in the season.

The riders observed a one minutes silence in honour of the victims of the Japan earthquake ahead of the MotoGP race. The 22 lap race was run in the best conditions of the weekend with fairly high temperatures without the strong winds that had been feared. It produced a thrilling race with close encounters throughout the pack.

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After the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on Friday the FIM has announced that the Japanese MotoGP race, originally scheduled to take place on April 24, will now be held on October 2.

Dorna had the option to move the Motegi date after consultation with circuit management because of a large break in the calendar after the Motorland Aragon race on September 18 and Phillip Island race in Australia on October 16.

Although the Twin Ring Motegi is believed to have escaped major damage in last week’s earthquake, which was a magnitude of 8.9, roads between Tokyo and Mito – the closest city to the circuit – have been damaged.

Mito is also the city where the vast majority of race personnel reside during the race weekend and there have been reports of some structural damage.

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Carlos Checa rounded off a perfect weekend at Phillip Island with victory in both races to take home a maximum of 50 points and the World championship lead.

After dominating during practise and qualifying it was hardly a surprise to see Carlos Checa continue in the same vein in both races of the opening round of the 2011 World Superbike season at Phillip Island in Australia.

What might have been surprising is that despite closing the gap on the Althea Ducati during qualifying, none of the other teams could get close to the Spaniard on the track, leaving Checa to romp away and build up a significant lead in both races.

2010 World Superbike Champion Max Biaggi was best of the rest, securing the second podium place in both races while most of the action on the track was taking place in the jostle for the final podium spot, with Leon Haslam and Marco Melandri claiming the place respectively over the two races.

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It has been no secret that McLaren has struggled with reliability issues and performance during pre-season and both their drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button have admitted that come the first race day in Melbourne they will be surprised if they could compete with the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull.

BBC trio Martin Brundle, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan didn’t hold back in their criticism of the McLaren car during their season review for the public broadcaster.

“I watched the [McLaren] out on track a week ago and it’s a mess,” Brundle said.

“It didn’t slow down. It didn’t turn in. It couldn’t get the power down. Lewis [Hamilton] looked absolutely at sea in the thing. Clearly they have a fundamental issue.”

Coulthard added: “If your car doesn’t run quick straight out of the blocks then it is a problem. By the time you sort it out everyone will have brought their second and third upgrades along.”

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Red Bull’s Mark Webber set the standard on the first day of testing at  Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya on Tuesday with a lap time of  1m 22.544s, almost  four-tenths of a second faster than McLaren‘s Jenson Button. With Ferrari, Mercedes GP and Williams opting  to start their testing only on Wednesday, all eyes were always going to be on Red Bull and McLaren and it came as no surprise when they topped the timesheetsat the end of day.

Conditions has to be said were less than favourable with the occasional light shower and a strong wind blowing across the track, but that however did not stop Webber from putting the RB7  through its paces on a 97 laps

McLaren had tongues wagging early in the day as they began the action with a radical bulge on the nose of the car, which proved to be simply a measurement device rather than a technical innovation. Button was able to put the MP4-26 second in the standings, with a gap of + 0.366 viewed by some as a disappointing lack of pace but at the same time an improvement on previous showings.

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