Jorge Lorenzo ninth on final testing day in Australia

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team‘s Jorge Lorenzo set the ninth fastest time during the third day of testing in Australia. This last opportunity was one of the more challenging outings for Jorge as he focused on making a decision as to which YZR-M1 model he would like to continue to develop – the one more similar to the 2015 model or the alternative edition.

Lorenzo was eager to work down his testing checklist and was one of the first riders to leave pit lane to make the most of the dry conditions in the morning.

Determined to give his engineer as much data as possible to base the next steps on, he completed a total 41 laps and set a fastest time of 1‘29.760s. Despite a small crash later in the afternoon, which left him unhurt but saw him end the day early, he took ninth place, 0.602s from the front.

His best lap overall of 1‘29.357s has him placed fourth in the combined time sheets, 0.226s from the lead.

The team will now head back to Europe whilst the engineers return to Japan to process the data and further prepare the 2016 YZR-M1 for the start of the season.

The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team will regroup in Qatar for the final pre-season test on March 2nd, a little more than two weeks ahead of the opening round, also in Losail.

JORGE LORENZO
We didn‘t have a lot of time to test in the morning and I did the lap time I set this morning on a rear tyre that already had done 24 laps. I‘ve been riding with old tyres all day because we only had one more new tyre. When we finally got a dry track and time to try that last new rear tyre to set a decent lap time, Laverty crashed and I had to cancel that lap. I then decided to try a race simulation, but I crashed on the first lap because the track was very cold. There were a lot of crashes during this time of the day. I was very dedicated and braked a little bit too hard for the grip of the front tyre and I crashed, so I ended the test and I‘m going home. Sepang, for us, has been an unbelievable test. Here things changed completely because the lay-out of the track is the opposite. Let‘s see what happens in Qatar.

Source: Yamaha Racing