MotoGP: Lorenzo not experienced enough to challenge

New Ducati signing Jorge Lorenzo has conceded that a lack of experience was the reason for his poor showing during his debut for the Italian firm in the opening race of 2017, after that and a first corner mistake conspired against him and left him 11^th overall after 20 laps of racing.

The Spaniard has spent all winter working to adapt his riding style to the new bike after nine seasons on a Yamaha M1 – but says that despite that, he still has work to do before he can make more of an impression on the race results like teammate Andrea Dovizioso was able to do.

“It was disappointing for sure – not what I had dreamed about. Andrea started a lot of places ahead of me, he didn’t make a mistake that cost him three or four seconds and he has a lot more experience than me, especially with old tyres when they’ve started to drop. He’s able to ride much better then, maybe using the rear brake to turn, but when I start to lose the rear grip I lose so much performance.

“I still need to change a lot about my riding, but I think in Qatar we were worse than we really are. We’re not so bad, and I tried to do the best, but that wasn’t great on the day thanks to some mistakes and some bad feelings.”

However, there is one positive for the 29-year-old, who says that he’s able to take reassurance from the performance by his teammate in the race.

“Andrea as always is a very clever guy, and he stayed focused and didn’t make mistakes during a difficult race. He took the maximum from the bike, but it did surprise me that he fought for the victory with Viñales, who seemed to be completely the favourite with no opposition.”