MotoGP, Lorenzo: We mustn't be catastrophic

Jorge Lorenzo’s Dutch weekend saw almost no moments of glory and even the race was anything but satisfying for the Majorcan. All beyond the 15th place finish, the result of a risky choice of switching to rain tyres in the final laps.

“I was not very fast in general - Jorge opens - but in the early part of the race I was consistent, making up positions and gaining on the group ahead of me. But when the rain came, my pace slowed significantly, with various problems both on the front and the rear, so since I had nothing to lose, I tried to change bikes. However, the rain tapered off, so I had to settle. Unfortunately, in these conditions of variable weather, I was unable to be fast. It was a difficult race, like the ones in 2014 and 2016.”

All of this despite the fact that there were a few steps forward in the morning: “This morning we made some changes to the setup to find more stability on the fast turns and we had improved slightly. I felt this in the race too, but there were still points where we struggled a lot, for example on turn two or the one before the last “S”. Throughout the weekend we only progressed in a few parts.”

Discouragement could play nasty tricks on the environment and on Jorge himself, but the Spaniard emphasizes something.

“It seems like we live day by day, but we must not forget that we were coming from a great race where we finished second in qualifying and fourth in the race, whereas today everything appeared to be a disaster. We mustn’t be catastrophic, even if things did not go well here and we were only able to do a few miles on dry track to make progress. In recent races we improved, so I think that we can do the same on the Sachsenring as well. We are not so far behind that we can’t think about something like that.”

Jorge’s has a long and complicated job ahead and he is certainly not helped by the great results achieved by Dovizioso and Petrucci, or maybe he is: “The results demonstrate the high value of the bike and podiums and wins can be achieved. I need to get to know the bike and manage to find a setup that lets me be fast. We need to consider this bad day as just a hiccough.”