Jorge Lorenzo’s difficult Ducati debut ended in a disappointing 11th following an early off-track excursion and late tyre woes.
The Spaniard has struggled all winter to adjust to the Desmosedici, but an upturn in form during the Qatar test and the strength of the Ducati at Losail made his weekend prospects fairly positive.
However, Lorenzo toiled for pace throughout practice, and was forced to start from 12th on the grid after qualifying was cancelled on Saturday. Despite this, he did feel as if he had made a step forward with the bike on Friday.
Lorenzo made up several spots off the line, but he undid his good work by running off track at Turn 4 and dropping to the rear of the field. This set the tone for the remaining 19-and-a-half laps.
“It was a very complicated race from all aspects,” he said.
“I started off well, but on the opening lap I went wide and lost a lot of positions, and this conditioned me in my efforts to get back up.”
Once settled into a rhythm, Lorenzo was beginning to lap similar to the leaders, and soon he was into the top 10. However, he was unable to manage his soft rear tyre in the latter stages and started to drop off the pace.
In the dying stages he fell behind Tech 3 Yamaha’s Jonas Folger and took the chequered flag in 11th, 20 seconds away from race winner Maverick Vinales. This is Lorenzo’s worst finish in Qatar in his career.
“I felt better on the bike and I started to lap at the same pace as the leaders, but unfortunately in the final part of the race I started to lose confidence in the tyres and my bike became a lot more physical to ride, so I had to slow the pace and I was unable to finish in the top 10.”
Though very much the Bologna debut he wanted to avoid, Lorenzo refuses to get too disheartened, as he knew that his Ducati transition would not yield overnight success.
“I want to be positive about things, however, even though my first race with Ducati didn’t go the way we expected. It’s true that we are just at the start, and we know we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Lorenzo’s team-mate Andrea Dovizioso fought hard for the victory with Vinales, but just ran out of grip with his soft tyre in the final few laps. For the third season in succession, the Italian took to the second step of the Losail rostrum.
