Italian Marco Melandri will continue his WSBK testing with Yamaha at Phillip Island this week.

The world champion Aprilia Alitalia and Yamaha Sterilgarda Superbike World Championship teams will test at Phillip Island this week in a three-day test commencing today.

The test will mark the first time that new champion Max Biaggi will share the circuit with WSBK rookie Marco Melandri, the Italian pair former rivals in MotoGP.

Melandri was a surprise guest at last weekend’s Super X round in Sydney on Saturday night, looking forward to the test at Phillip Island in just his second outing on the YZF-R1.

Alongside Biaggi and Melandri at the test will be English riders Leon Camier and Eugene Laverty respectively.

The teams attracted a massive amount of attention yesterday while setting up their pit areas during a public Phillip Island Ride Day, with Camier and members of the Aprilia team taking time out to meet a number of RSV4 track day riders during the day.

The 2011 season will commence at Phillip Island on 25-27 February.

Meanwhile, rain was the disturbing factor on Monday’s first day of private Superbike team testing at the Portimao circuit in Portugal.

While Yamaha and Aprilia are starting to test at Phillip Island, Ten Kate Honda, Suzuki Alstare, BMW Motorrad, BMW Italia and Aprilia DFX-Borciani were all hoping to put in some dry weather testing in southern Europe over the next couple of days.

But yesterday’s session was somewhat of a washout as the riders could only manage to piece together three or four laps before being interrupted by showers, which did not allow the track to dry out.

The action however did see Ruben Xaus get to grips with his Ten Kate Honda for the first time since signing for the Dutch team, while James Toseland had an opportunity to ride the BMW test-team bike while his BMW Italia machine is being prepared.

The Ducati Supersonic squad have also taken down their new signing Maxime Berger to Portimao but the Frenchman did not go out on to the track today.

The laps times were all around the high 1:57/1.58 mark, with Honda’s Jonathan Rea clocking the best of the day ahead of BMW’s Leon Haslam and Australian Troy Corser.