Lorenzo Masters Wet Motegi for Perfect Pole: Grand Prix of Japan
Motegi (Japan), 26 Oct 2013: Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo delivered a stunning performance in this afternoon’s extended MotoGP qualifying session to take pole position for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Japan.
Following yesterday’s cancellation of practice sessions due to weather conditions, the premier class were today given a special 75-minute qualifying heat, allowing the drama of the Japanese round to finally move to the track.
Defending world champion Lorenzo made full use of the extended session, getting straight out onto the wet circuit to start working on his race set up. Having initially swapped the top spot with rival Marc Marquez early in the session he dropped down the timesheets. After some work on the set up he was back, rising quickly to 2nd after a third of the time had gone, 0.1seconds from Marquez in top. The top positions continued to change until with 15 minutes to go, when Lorenzo put the hammer down and delivered a perfect 1’53.965 to go over half a second clear at the top. Whilst his rivals were able to improve, so was he, dropping even further to a 1’53.471 in the final seconds to secure pole 0.65 ahead of Marquez.
Lorenzo said: “I’m really happy, it was not so simple because my last memory of the rain was Assen. At the beginning I was a little bit scared and didn’t want to crash. We were lucky to have the extended qualifying time to get used to the track. Little by little I got confidence and finally I felt really good with the bike and the grip of the track, especially under braking. It doesn’t matter if it’s wet or dry tomorrow, it’s not my problem to think about it, I have to ride in whatever conditions we have. A wet race would be better for the championship though!”
ends
