Lorenzo plays down 20th, insists pace is top ten

Whilst the result on paper appears to resonate with his performances on the Repsol Honda so far this year, Jorge Lorenzo insists his 20th position at the end of the Italian GP FP2 session is not reflective of his true pace at Mugello.

The three-time MotoGP World Champion is enduring a tough initiation to the Honda fold in 2019 having failed to crack the top ten in any of the opening five races but comes into this weekend positive of a stronger result after winning for Ducati twelve months ago.

However, Lorenzo would find himself even further than the order than usual after FP2 with his best time only good enough for 20th, even if the closeness of the laps means he was only a 1.3secs adrift from the top.

Indeed, the Spaniard insists he didn’t fit the favourable soft tyre in the closing stages, so his lap time belies his true form.

“Of course we can’t be happy with 20th, it’s not a good position to be in. But today at the end of FP2 everyone fitted the soft and I stayed working with the harder tyre because I feel we will be able to profit more tomorrow morning.

“My pace is not so far from everyone else but we still need to improve our one lap pace a bit. I think we could have been top ten with a new tyre. Tomorrow we will see.”