Lorenzo blazes to Valencia front row despite bike issues

Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo kept the pressure on today ahead of this weekend’s upcoming MotoGP title showdown, taking second on the grid in qualifying for tomorrow’s Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana.

The defending world champion tackled the last qualifying session of the year in his usual style, first out onto the track and immediately on the pace. His first flying lap was a scorching 1’30.645, enough to drop under the current lap record and take provisional pole position. Lorenzo then returned immediately to the pits as he developed a technical issue with his number one bike.

He returned to the track with just over six minutes remaining however the problem remained so he was forced to return to the pits again to switch to bike two. He was back out for the final moments and despite a less than perfect set up was able to drop his time further to a 1’30.577 to secure second position on the front row.

Jorge Lorenzo “One thing is qualifying, the other is the race. We tried our best for pole position but unfortunately bike number one had an issue when we had our second attempt at a fast lap. We went to the second bike but it was an older engine with a different character and it didn’t feel the same. If we make a good start tomorrow we can overtake Marquez and see what we can do in the race.”

Source: Yamaha Racing