Lorenzo: “Too early to talk about race”

Jorge Lorenzo made an excellent start to the Gran Premio d’Italia Alice weekend on Friday, heading a Fiat Yamaha one-two at the top of the free practice timesheet by a 0.195s margin from team-mate Valentino Rossi, but he was playing things cool at the end of the day.

In order to win Sunday’s fifth race of the year Lorenzo will need to overcome his seemingly untouchable Italian colleague on Rossi’s favourite MotoGP track, but the young Spaniard looked good in the Tuscan sunshine on day one.

Lorenzo is in fine form as he leads the championship from Rossi by just one point and he was the only rider to dip under the current Mugello lap record as he quickly found a good setting for his M1 at the undulating, high-speed track.

“This is a great start but it’s too soon to speak about the race or jump to conclusions, as we’ve only had one practice,” said Lorenzo. “It’s true however that I didn’t have any problems today and I felt very happy for the whole session. Each time we come to a new track we don’t know exactly what to expect because we’re still learning the new Bridgestone tyres but at the moment we seem to be fast each time and I feel very comfortable at the moment.”

“It’s very hot here, even hotter than in Spain but I am okay with that because we’ve had too much rain and we all need some sunshine. I hope it will continue like this for the weekend because it’s better for everyone.”