Falls and frustrations for Jorge Lorenzo in German GP qualifying

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Jorge Lorenzo successfully came through Q1 at the Sachsenring today despite a late crash. He was on a hot lap in the second 15-minute qualifying heat when another fall prohibited him from setting a fast time. Unable to rejoin the session, he settled for eleventh on the grid for tomorrow‘s GoPro Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland.

Lorenzo had a relatively easy pass through Q1 in order to promote to Q2. He immediately moved up to second on his first flying lap, but when the pace picked up he was pushed back to third. That didn‘t last long, however, as on a next fast lap the current World Champion set a 1‘21.737s for first place and held on to it for most of the session. When he was relegated to second place, the Factory Yamaha rider headed out to put the hammer down once more. Despite suffering an unlucky fall at the end of the session, he was through to Q2.

The Mallorcan had a late start to the second qualification session on his second bike in order to get a flying lap in without any traffic. With a little more than eleven minutes to go he joined the time attack and showed his consistency as he rode a set of laps in the 1.22‘s and clocked a 1‘22.088s for seventh place.

With more than four and a half minutes left of the session he came in for a short pit stop before having another go at putting his name at the top of the leader board. However, a few minutes later drama struck once more when he suffered a second small crash. The rider was unhurt, but was unable to rejoin the session and ultimately finished eleventh in the qualifying time sheets.

JORGE LORENZO
During the second crash I entered the corner not breaking so hard or deep, but on the previous lap I didn‘t warm up my tyres enough. I was completely straight and not breaking very strongly when I lost the front. Three mistakes on my part are not normal for me, but this weekend it happened. I‘m disappointed about the crashes and the position, but ultimately I could see a big improvement. During every practice session we improved the bike and finally we were very competitive with the new tyre, especially in Q1. On the lap that I crashed I maybe could have done a 1‘21.5 or 1‘21.4. After I crashed we made another modification for Q2 but I didn‘t have enough new tyres, I only had one more, so we exited with a nine-laps old tyre and I was impressed about the lap time, a 1‘22.0, which was good. I imagined that if I put on a new tyre I could be on the first or second row, but unfortunately I wasn‘t able to finish the lap. Eleventh on the grid is a bad position, but that‘s where I finished.

Source: Movistar Yamaha