Jorge Lorenzo to be more conservative in 2009

Jorge Lorenzo will adopt a less gung-ho approach in 2009 to strengthen his bid to seriously challenge Fiat Yamaha team-mate for the MotoGP world championship.

The 2008 Rookie of the Year produced several scintillating performances last season. Not least three successive pole positions in his first three races, but he also won in only his third attempt in the premier class at Estoril.

Lorenzo’s amazing debut season though was also peppered with a series of massive crashes, which left the double world 250GP champion spending large portions of the campaign recovering from injury.

In a bid to be more consistent and avoid the crashes that blighted his season, Lorenzo’s team manager Daniele Romagnoli said the Spaniard would change his approach to 2009.

“He will try and avoid to push from the beginning too soon. Normally Jorge is a rider that wants to push from the first lap he goes out on the track and this maybe is one of his few negative points.

“Also sometimes like in Valencia, the bike was not perfect at the start and he got a little bit nervous about that.

“This is all experience for him and we have talked to him a lot to make him a bit more relaxed and understand that things won’t always go his way, “Romagnoli told MCN.

Romagnoli also believes that Lorenzo’s experiences in 2008 will make him a much more formidable opponent next season.

He added: “I think he has a big chance to be much stronger than last year. Maybe his approach will not be conservative but a little bit on the safer side.

“You can’t score zero points in five races if you want to challenge for the world championship. In my opinion, if you score zero points in only one race, then you are out of the championship.

“Maybe we have to say sometimes that second place is okay, but if we have the chance to win then lets go for it. Overall the experience in 2008 has made him much stronger.”

Lorenzo and the rest of the MotoGP field will return to track action in Sepang, Malaysia next Thursday when the winter testing campaign resumes.