Sepang MotoGP Reaction: Crash blow for Jorge Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo saw his hopes of snatching third place in his rookie MotoGP world championship campaign ended by a crash in today’s sweltering Sepang GP.

Lorenzo was still fighting for third overall with fierce Spanish rival Dani Pedrosa, but his hopes of taking the battle to the last race in Valencia next weekend were dashed.

The Fiat Yamaha rider crashed out of sixth place on lap 12, having just passed Shinya Nakano’s San Carlo Honda RC212V.

The 21-year-old said: “I didn’t feel good today and I was riding much worse than yesterday. I was having some problems in braking and acceleration and this is really a pity because I thought I had the chance to be on the podium today.

“I had many problems with my tyres in the first few laps and in fact I had a lot of warnings about the crash, but in the end I just couldn’t avoid it.”

Lorenzo said a key area to improve in the future was his starts, as he fluffed a fifth successive front row.

“I got a bad start and it seems this part of the race is getting more difficult every time. If I had a better start I could have tried to go with Valentino and Pedrosa but today was terrible.

“We have to change something here because at the moment it’s quite difficult. Apart from these problems I know I didn’t have the same feeling in myself as I had yesterday, so it really wasn’t a good day!

“It’s a little sad now that we can only be fourth in the championship, but I can still be rookie of the year so I will focus on this because it’s important for all of my team. Congratulations to Valentino for another triumph and now let’s look onwards to Valencia”, said the double world 250 champion.