What more could Movistar Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo ask for today? At Le Mans, France, one of his favourite tracks, he was extremely competitive throughout practice, broke the record during qualifying which secured him pole, he led from start to finish in a faultless race and claimed twenty-five points towards his championship that he now leads by five points.
The Spanish rider only feared Repsol Honda rider Marc Marquez who went into the race leading the championship, and who would start from beside him on the grid in second place. Little did he know that the Italian duo from his future team, Ducati, where hot on his tale and a risk towards his faultless ride.
Andrea Dovizioso was in hot pursuit of the Spaniard and Andrea Iannone was also keeping Marquez at bay for him. Iannone crashed out, though, and soon after Dovizioso and Marquez had a ‘freak accident’ which meant the 2015 MotoGP Champion had less pressure as his teammate Rossi who was now in pursuit had been delayed due to a terrible chaotic start from the front of the third row.
“I‘m very happy with this victory because everything has been almost perfect. In the race I knew Marquez had the chance to fight for the victory with me, or if he wasn‘t very fast, he would have been second or third and that would have meant he would still have kept his first position in the championship, but he crashed.”
Lorenzo won with a ten second lead on his teammate Rossi and was able to claim the top spot of the championship leaderboard where he has ninety points. Marquez is just five points behind on eighty-five and Rossi is in third with seventy-eight. The top three all have a DNF to their name so far this season and so Lorenzo knows he still has to work hard to retain his crown as champion before he moves to Ducati.
“Now in the championship three riders scored zero or very little points in one race, so in some way we are starting the championship from zero again after those races, but with us being five points ahead.”
Lorenzo has his work cut out ahead of him at the next round which is set to take place in Mugello on May 22. This is the home round of his teammate’s where not only is he really familiar, but the Italian’s fans will play a huge part in any psychological factors that may affect the Spaniard. However in saying that, he won at the track last year and has recently announced that he will be moving to the Italian team Ducati for at least two seasons, so maybe the fans will go easy on him during the sixth round of the 2016 MotoGP season.
