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It was not an easy day for Jorge Lorenzo, regardless of his 16th place in qualifying. At Le Mans everything seems to go wrong for the Majorcan, both on and off the track and his irritation is palpable. In addition to the disappointing results on the track (he was even last in FP3), he doubled his political defeat yesterday in Safety Commission when the vast majority of the riders decided to set aside the 2017 front tyre that he prefers.
In that meeting, he even had a tense exchange with Miller. And so, when a journalist asked Jorge for his opinion on Jack’s accident, Lorenzo attacked the Australian.
“My opinion of him is negative. Yesterday he was rude to me. He basically told me to shove my opinion up my ass” were the Majorcan’s words.
Miller was loosely quoting a Clint Eastwood phrase in his role as Dirty Harry and he basically explained to Lorenzo that “opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one, keep yours to yourself.”
Logically, Jorge was not appreciative: “No one can talk that way to anyone else, especially to a five-time world champion - the Spaniard continued - Today it went very well for him. It was an accident similar to the one that happened to Marquez at Mugello in 2013. In my opinion, Miller is one of those riders who are more reckless when it comes to the risks, the dangers that you face on a bike.”
Lorenzo was also protagonist of another curious scene today when the TV cameras filmed him after FP3 on the receiving end of what looked every bit like a lecture from team manager Davide Tardozzi.
Maybe it would be best for him to just focus on the race.
“I think that today we were unlucky for various reasons - he explained – With wet track conditions we could have been more competitive, but with the damp asphalt I did not feel safe and I did not push as much as the others. We also did not have time to set up the bike and on the Ducati I still don’t have all the automatisms to go fast straight away. Lastly, in Q1 there were a lot of strong riders and despite a good time, I was unable to go through to Q2.”
However, he assures us that there is margin for improvement.
“We are not in such bad shape, but we will need to make a radical change to the settings for the warm up - he continued – I just need more time, especially on a complicated track like this one that is also so different from Jerez. I’ll start from behind and I will need to pay attention, without doing anything crazy, but at the same time trying to make up positions.”
