Cal Crutchlow hails Qatar winner Jorge Lorenzo

British rider Cal Crutchlow has heaped more praise on reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo after the Spaniard’s successful start to the defence of his MotoGP crown in Qatar last weekend.

Speaking in Doha last weekend, the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider said Lorenzo does things on Yamaha’s YZR-M1 machine that no other rider can come close to equalling.

Crutchlow said not even nine-times world champion Valentino Rossi can match some of Lorenzo’s YZR-M1 exploits, including his gravity defying lean angle and high corner speed.

Lorenzo has always been famed for his silky smooth riding style and Crutchlow, who battled for the podium in the season opener until a late mistake dropped him back to fifth, told MCN: “How he does things on the track, nobody can understand. Why he can get so much lean angle with the bike without crashing? We don’t know.

“He can do something every single lap all weekend when all the other guys can manage it for one lap and he doesn’t understand he is doing it.

“It is natural for him and if we all go at the same lean angle as him, each time it doesn’t matter who it is they crash or have a big moment. We can’t understand but it is him.

“He is very smooth and the Yamaha likes that but he has a very economical riding style and you couldn’t tell when he is braking because there is no harsh movement with the bike. But he doesn’t know he is doing it.”

Crutchlow said Lorenzo’s riding style is perfectly suited to the YZR-M1 and his success on the bike had only made Yamaha’s engineering group tailor the bike even more to suit the 25-year-old.

The former World Supersport champion said: “The bike is built around Lorenzo and his style. And the faster he goes and the more races he wins the more the bike goes to him because they design it around him as the world champion.

“That’s fair enough but my style and Jorge’s are different. If you look at Valentino’s style and mine we are very similar. The only thing that makes me look really aggressive on the bike is because I am small.

“It is the same with (Dani) Pedrosa. He looks really aggressive but actually he is really smooth. I’m a lot smoother than in 2011 but experience and doing more laps consistent laps helps that.”

Yamaha made a dream start to the 2013 MotoGP campaign when Lorenzo and Rossi claiming a brilliant 1-2 under the Losail International Circuit floodlights and you can read all about it in today’s issue of Motor Cycle News.