Daniele Romagnoli Praises Lorenzo’s “Great Season”

With three victories and a total of ten podiums from 13 races so far this year, Jorge Lorenzo has done an excellent job for the Fiat Yamaha team in just his second season in the premier class.

The Spaniard is well positioned to finish the season in a top two position in the standings and if he wasn’t fighting for the championship with one of the best riders in history, in Valentino Rossi, he might well have run away with the title this year.

His Fiat Yamaha Team Manager Daniele Romagnoli summarised, “This season is really great for us, we’re very happy with the improvements the team has made, working on the set-up of the bike. Jorge has also progressed a lot as he’s now able to be very consistent, fast in every session and every race really. I think he will be the biggest rider in the future.”
He continued, “The best moment of the season so far was the Japanese Grand Prix. It was really important for us to get a win early on in the season and Jorge was able to get that one. Overall, we have to look at the fact that we’re regularly challenging Valentino – riding against him and challenging him is a great honour and a big satisfaction.”

Also acknowledging Lorenzo’s valiant effort at his home race in Barcelona, when he missed out on victory against Rossi by 0.095s, Romagnoli said, “Catalunya showed that although we didn’t win it was an important race because Jorge was able to push Valentino, right until the end. So it was not like a real loss, Jorge just got beaten on the last corner.”

On the final quartet of races remaining in 2009, the Italian team boss added, “Being 30 points behind Valentino, we know that getting the title would be very hard, but I think we have to try until the very end and put in maximum effort. You never know what can happen, the mathematics say it’s possible, so we’ll try. The most important thing is to try to be on the podium as often as possible and always be among the leaders.”