Lorenzo not taking it easy and goes third fastest in Sepang

The MotoGP paddock was back in action today at Sepang and the usual scalding Malaysian temperatures greeted the riders as they made their first foray onto the track. The Fiat Yamaha Team made a strong start to the 15th round of the season, with Valentino Rossi finishing on top of the time sheets and Jorge Lorenzo not far off him in third.

The biggest problem facing the riders today was the lack of grip on track, with the circuit very slippery after a period of inactivity. It was therefore difficult for them to make their Bridgestone tyres work at full potential but despite this the Yamaha riders were quickly on the pace, rarely out of the top three for the whole session. It was Rossi who put down the best lap of the day but Lorenzo, who has his first championship title shot this Sunday, was less than two tenths off his team-mate. Both the Italian and the Spaniard are looking forward to making further improvements tomorrow as more rubber is laid down and the grip levels get better.

Jorge Lorenzo: “Today conditions were quite difficult, with the high temperatures and a dirty track. I’m happy though because I felt good on the bike, I rode fast and I was close to the first position. We rode with the old engine again today but maybe we will try the new one tomorrow. We need to work on the fourth sector, which is where we’re losing time at the moment, so tomorrow we will concentrate on that and try to improve further.”

Wilco Zeelenberg: “The track hasn’t been used for a while and our first impression is that there’s not much grip and it’s quite slippery. We tried two different settings to try to work around this but in fact they were both quite similar. We expect it to be better tomorrow but of course we can’t just rely on the track improving, we need to work on our setting as well. Anyway we were still fast today, the speed is okay and we’re close to the front so we’re already competitive, we just need to improve our package a bit more tomorrow.”

Source: Yamaha Racing