Jorge Lorenzo hails ‘deserved’ title for Quartararo and Yamaha

Last rider to have been titled with Yamaha before Fabio Quartararo, Jorge Lorenzo was present in Misano to pass the baton to the young French champion. Withdrawn from competition for two years, the Mallorcan greeted sacred he judged “deserved for everyone”, both for El Diablo and for the builder of Iwata, with whom he himself raced for nine years.

“Yamaha has always worked a lot and the bike is still very complete”, he observed from the official MotoGP website. “I’m happy for Yamaha. I’m a Yamaha rider because it was with them that I won my three MotoGP titles, so I will always be remembered as a Yamaha rider. Yamaha is a family, this are very, very serious people, the Japanese are always very loyal and they give you confidence even in the most difficult times, so that’s why I’m happy for them. And they were finally able to find a very smooth pilot. , as I was, which is perfect for this type of bike. “

Titled three times with Yamaha, Jorge Lorenzo, like Fabio Quartararo, celebrated his first coronation during his third season in the premier class. It was then the conclusion of a 2010 campaign that he had crushed, by climbing 16 times on the podium in 18 races and above all by posting 138 points ahead of his runner-up! Two years later, it was with the same number of top 3 finishes but a much smaller lead over a particularly resistant Dani Pedrosa that he had managed to grab the Grail for the second time. Then there was the controversial season of 2015, from which he managed to emerge victorious in the last race to the detriment of his teammate, Valentino rossi.

Today, the 34-year-old former pilot observes with awe Fabio Quartararo’s journey, quick to take its marks in MotoGP while its passage in the smallest world categories turned out to be more complicated. “When he came to Petronas in 2019, nobody expected him to be so competitive and become World Champion. People were saying he hadn’t been very competitive in Moto2, that he was a talented driver but not very consistent. But little by little, year after year, he ended up improving and he changed a lot compared to last season. “

“He never made the slightest mistake. In the MotoGP championship, you can’t win all the races and you always find a track that doesn’t suit us or doesn’t suit the bike, and in those cases you have to finish the race, you must not fall. It doesn’t matter whether it’s third, fourth or fifth, you have to finish the race. That’s exactly what Fabio has been doing all season and so on. ‘that’s why he’s World Champion “, he greets.

“I saw a Pecco [Bagnaia] very strong over the last three or four races “, Lorenzo continues. “He was the fittest rider. He was on pole all the time and he won almost all the time. It certainly put extra pressure on Fabio, who saw his championship lead gradually diminish. It’s not good, that’s what put him under pressure. And over the weekend he struggled to be competitive in mixed conditions. “

“The Yamaha is not the most competitive bike in the wet and in mixed conditions, where there is a lot to lose, it’s complicated, it’s not easy to be competitive. That’s why that while Pecco was in pole position, he was 15th. The circumstances were not easy, but he never stressed, he never lost his head. Little by little, he recovered positions [en course] and he was lucky that Pecco fell. “

“I don’t think he expected to become World Champion [dimanche]. It was of course a possibility, because a fall can always happen and it finally happened to Pecco, but I believe he was thinking more of Portimão than [Misano] to become World Champion. He was surprised! “