from Twowheelsblog
Jorge Lorenzo was certainly not expecting to end up 7th at Le Mans, which was considered a Yamaha friendly track, especially since the reigning world champion has never been this far down on a finishing grid since Assen 2011 when he finished 6th, but there he got caught up in the late Marco Simoncelli’s crash, but he remounted and sliced through the field.
The rain at the start of the French GP race threw a wrench in his plans even though he was fastest in a wet warm-up, but his usually obedient M1 decided to that it didn’t like the rear tire or the new set-up and started spinning, and he couldn’t get it to work and slowly started to fade.
There was also some talk that his rear tire was defective (Rossi also got one this weekend), but Bridgestone promptly denied it. There were also rumors from the Spanish press that Lorenzo had problems with the visor of HJC helmet.
A rather depressed Lorenzo said he needs a bike that can give him 4 or 5 tenths more per lap, and both Yamaha riders are hoping that they’ll soon receive the much wanted seemless gearbox but apparently they’ll only get it for the Barcelona or Aragon post race tests.
“In the beginning of the race the bike was not the same as warm up but not so bad and I could follow Andrea and Dani. I was losing a lot in some areas of the track but recovering in others. Then after three or four laps the bike got worse and I got problems everywhere. In the braking because in the middle of the corner I didn’t trust the rear tyre and in acceleration because the rear was spinning so much I lost nearly half a second compared to the others. Races are like this sometimes; last year I won by 20 seconds with a very good bike and this year was completely the opposite. I couldn’t do much more without crashing,” said Lorenzo.
If Lorenzo left Le Mans losing precious points against Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez, it was even more terrible for Valentino Rossi. The Italian was riding in fourth and controlling Cal Crutchlow at a certain distance, because the visor of his AGV Pista GP was fogging up - Stefan Bradl who also crashed, but finished 10th lamented the same problem - when he hit a bump at turn 6 on lap 17 and lowsided out. Rossi was able to remount his damaged bike - his front brake lever was bent - but couldn’t do better then 12 which dropped him to fifth in the standings.
“Unfortunately we lost a good chance to get a good result today, I think we had the potential to arrive with the first three and arrive on the podium. I had a good pace and I was fast and I could fight with the other guys. In that corner, I didn’t arrive too fast and didn’t feel any mistake but I felt a bump and lost the front, so it’s a pity because we lose points and especially the chance to try to make a good podium here. Anyway, it can happen and the important thing is that today we were fast so we will see next week.” said Rossi.
