Melandri manager confirms '09 Ducati split.

Marco Melandri's manager has confirmed that the Italian will not ride for Ducati next season and that next weekend's US Grand Prix might be his last on a Desmosedici.

"The contract that bound us to Ducati for 2009 has been resolved by mutual consent," Melandri's manager Alberto Vergani told the ANSA press agency.

Melandri's two-year contract with Ducati was announced just after last year's US Grand Prix, but the troubled Italian - who has taken just one top ten finish from his first nine races for the factory Ducati team - could leave after the 2008 Laguna Seca event and be replaced by Sete Gibernau from Brno onwards.

Marco has been linked with a third Kawasaki seat from the Czech Republic Grand Prix, but funding is major a problem and Vergani admitted that the former 250cc world champion might be forced to sit out the remainder of the year if the mid-season Ducati split occurs.

"Melandri could stay motionless and wait for 2009," Vergani confessed.

Melandri was Honda's most successful MotoGP rider in 2005, when he finished second in the world championship to Valentino Rossi with the satellite Gresini team, and won more races than any other Honda rider in 2006.

As well as Kawasaki, Melandri has been linked with a return to the Gresini team for 2009.