Jorge Lorenzo takes third on Le Mans grid

Today Movistar Yamaha MotoGP rider Jorge Lorenzo faced cold and cloudy conditions during an intense 15-minute qualifying session at Le Mans, that saw him qualify on the first row for tomorrow‘s Monster Energy Grand Prix de France.

After dropping under the 1‘33 mark with a 1’32.647 lap in FP3 and being right on the pace during FP4, Lorenzo had a slightly cautious start to the qualifying session.

As the first man to leave pit lane he enjoyed some free track and slowly built up the pace. He took the top spot with his third flying lap, a 1‘33.369, before being pushed back to third place when the pace quickened. With a little less than seven minutes to go he came into the pits for a fresh set of rubber.

One and half minutes later Lorenzo was back on track and had just enough time left for two more hot laps. He waited until the last moment to show his pace on the extra soft front tyre, posting a 1‘32.846 on his final lap moving him up from fifth to third.

JORGE LORENZO
The conditions were difficult on the track, you have to be careful with slicks and stay confident. We were lucky on the last lap to have 99% of the track dry and I pushed quite a bit. It was a pity that I didn‘t ride any good laps and was slower than I was in FP3. I made a mistake in sector three and lost probably half a second, but I was lucky not to go outside of the track and ride a very good sector four, which put me on the first row. I was hoping to stay at least in third place, because it‘s always important to be on the front row. There were a lot of riders who hadn‘t finished yet so I stayed in front of the big screen to watch them. I made a very good lap time in Jerez, but this time I couldn‘t do it. It was my own fault, but at least we managed to stay in the top three. I prefer a dry race for tomorrow, I think almost everybody does, because it‘s more fun and safer.

Source: Yamaha Racing