It’s a sight that almost everyone will love to see – Jorge Lorenzo donning Yamaha gear and riding a YZR-M1 again. The Portimao Test will see the five-time World Champion operating a MotoGP™ machine for the first time since the February Sepang Test as he joins other factory test riders at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve for two days of important testing.
Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s action, Lorenzo was excited to get his leg over a MotoGP™ bike again and also admitted that he’ll be on the 2019 Yamaha, not a 2020 version as many would have expected. “I’m really excited to come back again to ride the Yamaha M1, because it has passed nine months, almost a year without riding and I’ve never been so long without riding, so for sure it will be quite difficult to adapt again to these speeds and bikes,” began Lorenzo, chatting in the pre-test Press Conference.
“But we have two days on a new track, that’s also important because it’s not only new but also especially with the up and down here, it’ll be important not to make silly mistakes at the beginning, do kilometres and try to give maximum information to Yamaha for the official riders.
“If I understand well, we’ll be on the same bike as Sepang, we weren’t able to bring the new bike so we’ll use this test especially to get the best gearbox for the official riders and to test the tyres, to understand in these conditions with this tarmac, which are the best for time attack and race distance. This is the main target, and probably also to play a bit with the set up, I will have the 2019 bike and the setup is a bit different so that’s a little less important than gearbox and tyres.”
The three-time premier class World Champion then weighed in on his thoughts on the 2020 title fight, that now has just six races to go and – of course – ends in Portimao.
“It’s very tough Championship, very equal, now Joan Mir and Fabio opened a little gap to the others but till the last race there were 4 riders, 6 or 7 with real options for fighting for the title. Now looks like the strongest will be Fabio and Joan. It’s interesting as there are a few races to the end and I’m having a lot of fun watching the races on TV!”
Hear what Lorenzo has to say about being back on a MotoGP™ bike and the Portimao circuit on motogp.com, keep an eye out for interviews, highlights and reactions being published throughout the day.