Marco Melandri's manager has confirmed that the Italian wil🌸l 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 - wꦐho has taken just one top ten finish from his first nine races for the factory Duca🔯ti 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 250c൩c world champion might be forced to sit out the remainder of the year if the mid-season Ducati split occurs.

"Melandri𒀰 could stay motionles♓s and wait for 2009," Vergani confessed.

Melandri was Honda's most successful MotoGP rider in 2005, when he fini�꧑�shed 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, M🥀elandri has be𝓀en linked with a return to the Gresini team for 2009.