Lorenzo struggling to find right balance at Phillip Island

Jorge Lorenzo says the problems which left him 11^th in practice for the Australian MotoGP are down to a difficulty in finding a balance between rear grip and front contact.

The Ducati rider was eighth in the first 45–minute session at Phillip Island, and was only able to improve on his laptime in the afternoon by two tenths of a second from a 1m30.059s to a 1m29.820s.

This left the Spaniard outside of the top 10 in 11^th and potentially facing Q1 at Phillip Island for a second season in succession should the forecast rain arrive for third practice.

Lorenzo has pinned his issues on failing to find a compromise between rear grip and front contact, with his set–up changes only making the handling of his GP17 worse.

“The main issue is rear grip and front contact,” said Lorenzo.

“In all the corners I need front contact, but I’m also missing grip.

“It’s very difficult to find the balance. We tried to make the bike lower to create more stability, but in the corners it doesn’t turn.

“So it will be difficult to find a compromise tomorrow, but we have some ideas.”

One of those ideas is to ditch the aerodynamic fairing he has used since the summer break to great effect, as he feels it is losing him more than he is gaining.

The Spaniard thinks the aero fairing’s acceleration benefits are limited due to the flowing nature of the Australian circuit, and says the wind is making the bike more ‘unpredictable’ in certain areas.

“If we have time and the conditions are dry, probably we will try the normal fairing,” he added.

“The new fairing doesn’t solve so much the problems, I believe, so here we struggle more than the last five or six tracks.

“Maybe (Andrea) Dovizioso (who rode without the aero fairing on Friday and has typically used the standard version this season ) is feeling good, but I couldn’t be much faster today.

“The thing is that here we don’t have so much acceleration, so the wheelie is not a big problem and the real problem I see with he new fairing is wind.

“The bike becomes more unpredictable is some parts of the track, this can be more negative than positive.”