Marco Melandri says he's thrilled to find grip gains from the Pirelli race tyres at Phillip Island having struggled with degradation throughout the winter after catching the eye on the final day of the pre-season test.

The Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider admits his biggest concern since starting pre-season testing has been balancing the grip levels over a race distance without losing lap time and feels vital improvements were uncovered for his riding style in combination with the Panigale R in Australia.

Having enjoyed productive race pace simulations on day two after the opening day was rain-interrupted, Melandri switched his focus to single lap speed towards the end of the second session to rise up to second overall with best lap of 1m 30.575s - just 0.03s off of timesheet topper Rea.

"In the afternoon the hotter conditions reduced the overall grip but the team has done a great job," Melandri said. "We tried new settings, which proved to work very well for me. The thing I'm most happy about is that we managed to finally maximise the grip on new tyres, which had been somewhat a weak spot for us throughout the winter.

"It's only a test, but it's always important to feel good on the bike so I'm hopeful ahead of the racing weekend, which I'll take step-by-step."

Melandri returns to the World Superbike championship for the first time since 2014 when he competed for the factory Aprilia squad before his ill-fated switch to Aprilia's MotoGP team in 2015.