Lorenzo wants better M1 feeling after first German run

Jorge Lorenzo experienced a first practice session at the eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland that left him and his Fiat Yamaha team with some overnight issues to resolve, namely a better front-end feeling on his M1 prototype.

The current World Championship leader, who has won the last three races coming into Sachsenring, was sixth fastest in the hour-long practice at 0.703s off Dani Pedrosa’s leading lap time. Lorenzo outlined a change in the way he rides for Saturday’s second practice and qualification sessions in order to regain feeling and get back towards the top end of the timesheet ahead of Sunday’s race.

"Today wasn't a good session for me and I didn't feel so good on the bike,” he said following Friday’s opener. “This isn't one of my favourite tracks and it's very different to the ones where I've won lately, so I think I need to make some changes to the way I'm riding the bike. I was fast at the start but then we didn't improve from the middle to the end and everyone else did. We have some work to do and our goal is to be competitive by Sunday."

Lorenzo’s Team Manager Wilco Zeelenberg echoed his rider’s sentiments, and explained that he hoped some close data analysis overnight would also make a difference.

"It wasn't a great start for us, Jorge is struggling for feel and he can't turn so well, compared to 2009 here he's not in such good shape,” said the Dutchman. “We need to compare the data and find out the differences, which are only small, but small differences always matter at this track because it's quite short.”

He added: “Hopefully if we can improve confidence in the front end Jorge will be much quicker, especially on the slow corners of which there are many here."