Lorenzo: Rossi and Vinales are working together
Jorge Lorenzo believes Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales have a ‘strategy’ in place to help each other during qualifying.
The reigning MotoGP champion will leave Yamaha for Ducati in 2017 with the highly-rated Vinales replacing him alongside Rossi.
Rossi stormed to his first pole position in Mugello since 2008, he completed his final lap in the slipstream of his future teammate Vinales. Similarly, Vinales completed his fast lap, to go second, behind Rossi.
Lorenzo believes Rossi and Vinales’ strong qualifying was not down to speed alone.
“Other riders were good to search or to wait for somebody, and looks like in the case of Rossi and Vinales it was not just quality, it was some strategy that they had.
“I make three lap times very similar and for example Rossi, until the last lap, the 1m36.5s, was not so fast but in the end he follows Vinales and improves one second.”
“Well, if it’s coincidence, the coincidence repeated five or six times,” said Lorenzo. “It’s difficult to have so many coincidences, but it could be, who knows.”
Lorenzo believes the fight for the victory in Mugello will be very close as several drivers have a similar speed, as shown in qualifying.
“[Andrea] Iannone was quick through the whole weekend, it doesn’t surprise me to see him in second,” the Spaniard said. “I expected him even in pole position.
“Vinales is fast and consistent, let’s see if the Suzuki can keep this pace in the race for so many laps.
“[Marc] Marquez is also very close, so I think four or five riders have similar pace and it will be a fun race tomorrow.”