Factory BMW's Marco Melandri is still searching for more front-end feel from his S1000RR after three days of World Superbike testing at Phillip Island and only had another two sessions at the track before the season opener at the end of next week.

The Italian former MotoGP man has struggled to find enough corner entry grip since he first rode it at Portimao in October and the high temperatures at the Australian track haven't helped matters.

“We have worked hard in many directions on this test. The first day was pretty successful and we had a good base to work with. But unfortunately we were struggling to make more steps forward. We still have some issues with the front of the bike, which we tried to solve by making some changes," said Melandri.

"I still need to get more confidence in the front of the bike. When it was hot, it became more difficult for me. But anyway – we need to be fast in every condition. Unfortunately we also lost three hours on the last day, when I crashed and we had to rebuild the bike. But now we have the time to analyse the information we collected and try to improve the bike at the next test. We still have two more days of testing before we go into the first race weekend, and I hope we are going to have good weather then.”