MotoGP recap: Round 4 - Spain

Jorge Lorenzo got his title campaign back on track with the first of four consecutive wins. Lorenzo was dominant at Jerez and afterwards he took advantage of the opportunity to remind everyone that you write him off at your peril

“Luckily for me, especially in MotoGP, I have a very good career,” said Lorenzo. “Most of the races in good positions. Most of the races I feel great to fight, but sometimes also I have bad moments like all sportsmen. But I was always able to come back. In those difficult moments I have my doubts, but I knew that sooner or later my moment would arrive and luckily for me it was Jerez. We took profit from this great opportunity to win here in front of the home fans. 

“This time everything felt fine at the start of the race. I could brake late and enter very fast into the corners. I had a good corner speed and good grip in acceleration. When you are like that, you have to do give your maximum to try to win this race. The problem was that I was very extremely fast at the beginning, in ‘38.7, but Marc was the same! He was close until the fourth of fifth lap when I could get a small advantage. Later I was able to increase his advantage but I had some vibration from the rear around lap 17 so I thought I had to be careful. But after it came normal again. So I could breathe, just go for it and win this grand prix, which is very special. Jerez is the most special track you can win at.”

Marc Marquez was the only other rider to finish the race in touch but even then he was over five seconds adrift. It was however important for him to get back on track and back on the podium after his Argentine blunder.

“I tried to win but today when I was behind Jorge and I saw the way he was riding, I thought ‘okay today is the day for Jorge,” said Marquez after the race. “My place is second. I’m really happy because by lap six, seven my finger felt okay, but I was using my right arm more and I started to get some arm pump problems. I knew I had to manage this because if not I would be struggling at the end. Then I saw that Valentino [Rossi] was catching me step-by-step and I say, ‘okay, it will be like Argentina!’ But then I was pushing and I saw that he was struggling to reduce the gap and in the end I was able to keep second. I’m so happy for this second place and these 20 points.”

Valentino Rossi had no answers for his rivals and instead of over riding and pushing too hard he rode within himself and took an easy third place ahead of Cal Crutchlow who finished as the top satellite.

“There was one moment in the race where I thought I could catch Marc, because I was riding well and had a good pace,” said Rossi. “But sincerely it was a difficult weekend for us. We were always fighting some problem. We improved for the race, but I knew that Jorge had a better pace than anybody. I thought I could stay with Marc. But unfortunately I was not strong enough in the first laps and I lost some time overtaking Pol [Espargaro]. After I pushed a lot, but in the last laps I didn’t feel very confident with the bike. I had to risk too much. I got to within one second of Marc, but I started to have some problems, some issues, so I thought it was too risky to try.”