Honda’s Jorge Lorenzo says he felt pain towards the end of the British MotoGP race but overall it was better than expected.
Lorenzo had a decent MotoGP return in British GP after finishing 14th and scoring two handy points, when he expected to not score any. The Spaniard expectedly qualified in the lower half considering his cautiousness.
He did not trouble very many riders in the grand prix as well as he hovered around the Top 15. Few crashes on the road helped him well to be in the points but two of them passed him in the latter stages to drop him to 14th.
His back pain forced him to slow down, which allowed the likes of Suzuki’s Sylavin Guintoli and Tech 3 KTM’s Hafizh Syahrin to pass him for track position, but he wasn’t long way off either of them.
“The race went better than expected,” said Lorenzo. “Coming into this race I knew it would be difficult and I was thinking that maybe I will finish one minute or more behind the winner because all weekend I have been about three seconds slower than the fastest time.
“To finish within one minute of the winner and to take away two points is a good reward for a demanding race. I was always in front of Abraham or in front of Syahrin, who was much faster than me during the weekend.
“At the end, even if I was very smooth with the throttle trying to save the tyre because I knew that I had medium-medium and most of the riders were hard-hard, the rear tyre dropped a lot in the last laps.
“So that’s why Syahrin could overtake me and take the position, after he was following me all the race. And also, honestly, I started having a lot of pain in the back, so I had to reduce the pace a little bit.
“I was able to learn more about how to conserve the tyres as well as testing my fitness so I am pleased. I am sore, but I will be stronger for the Misano test and then again in a better physical condition for the Misano race.”
