Italy's young motorcyling star Marco Melandri has emerged as the likeliest candidate to disturb Valentino Rossi's crushing supremacy on the MotoGP circuit next year .

Melandri, who at 23 has just completed his third season in the top flight, clinched the honour of MotoGP runner up on Sunday with a masterful ride to victory in Valencia. It was his second straight win .


Among other things, the Honda rider's late season success prevented his more famous compatriot from adding the record for wins in a single season to his many other accolades .

Melandri is modest when comparing his own talents to those of Rossi, but he is being hailed in Italy as a possible future successor to King Valentino .

Melandri Does it Again, This Is The Anti-Rossi, wrote best-selling daily Corriere della Sera in a headline on Monday .

La Gazzetta dello Sport, a popular sports daily, was already licking its lips ahead of next season, when it expected Melandri to challenge Rossi more than anyone has for several years .

The daily headlined with a telling quote from the young star: "I want to complicate Valentino's life a bit." Melandri has so far refused to take the hype seriously - at least in public - and avoided making any predictions for 2006, when he will ride for the new Honda-Fortuna team. "Now I have an even greater incentive to work hard over the winter to get ready for next season. I'm going to work on some of my weak points," he said at a press conference in Valencia .

Looking ahead to 2006, when Rossi will be going for his sixth straight title in motorcycling's top class, Melandri admitted that as runer up in 2005 there would be pressure on him .

"I'm going to have learn how to deal with that. In any case, I want to stick to my policy of taking one small step at a time." Melandri, only three years junior to Rossi, has so far lived out his motorcycling career in Rossi's shadow but he has made a habit of following in his compatriots footsteps. Like him, he won 125cc and 250cc titles before graduating to MotoGP. In 2002 Melandri also took the honour of youngest winner of the 250cc championship from Rossi, grabbing the honour at the age of 20 .

The 26-year-old Rossi has already admitted the Ravenna-born star is already a serious rival and only needs a little more experience to become a major threat .

Despite their growing rivalry, Rossi and Melandri are still firm friends and they have several things in common, including good looks and a strong interest in girls .

Both live much of the time in England, Rossi in London and Melandri in the northern English city of Derby. They have also both a taste for long sideburns, ear-rings and for dying their hair in the Italian red, white and green .

Melandri's results improved rapidly after he switched from Yamaha to Honda before the 2005 season. As well as his two wins this year, he also came second twice and third three times. This compared to only two podium finishes in 2004 and none at all in 2003 .

According to his website, Melandri started racing on mini-bikes at the age of eight and was already racing in the 125cc class at 15. Among his hobbies he cites music and DJ-ing .