Jorge Lorenzo has closed a deal that will see him as a factory Ducati rider in 2017.
Or so said Suzuki team boss Davide Brivio, who presumably leaked the news of the move knowing full well that Yamaha were attempting to poach his young rider Maverick Vinales to replace Lorenzo.
Long-time Ducati sponsors Phillip Morris and Audi have been pushing for Lorenzo for some time now, eager for the team to start winning races (and championships again). But for a rider as hungry as Lorenzo, would jumping into bed with Ducati be a smart move?
On the upside, Lorenzo would relish a garage environment without Valentino Rossi and the inevitable Doohan versus Crivillé – like politics that come with it. But in the absence of a Stoner or Valentino, Ducati now have the unenviable task of dropping either Andrea Dovizioso or Andrea Iannone – both stars on the rise.
Plans to renew Andrea Iannone’s contract before the start of the European season had reportedly stalled after the Italian’s last lap gaffe a week ago in Argentina; taking himself and teammate Dovizioso out when double podium was in the offing.
That might make their decision a little easier, but Dovizioso would still be an interesting proposition for Lorenzo, especially when you consider the Italian/Spanish jingo being hurled around during last season’s championship.
The other hurdle Lorenzo faces is what type of bike he’ll be getting when he walks into Ducati, but the team made a very shrewd decision in 2014 by entering all of its bikes in MotoGP’s ‘Open’ class instead of as a ‘Factory’ team.
Under Open rules, Ducati were then able to use 12 unsealed engines, so could therefore make bore and stroke adjustments usually banned under the Factory regulations. This meant that Ducati could evaluate different engines, electronics and chassis configurations – speeding up development at an exponential rate.
Rossi may have endured two very tough and very public seasons at Ducati, but admits the Italian manufacturer is beginning to find some form.
“I think Ducati is very strong” said Rossi after Argentina. “ They are fast from the beginning to the end. They have, like we know, a very good top speed – but also in a corner they are very fast.
“I think Iannone, if he hadn’t crashed, would stay [out front] until the end.”
Lorenzo has often been accused of not being on the level of Rossi or Marc Marquez when the bike is less than perfect, but will dominate a race if everything is in equilibrium as Honda HRC team principal Shuhei Nakamoto explains.
“Most riders will say ‘the bike is doing this and I want to ride like this. Marquez is different” says Nakamoto.
“We would run two bikes with different set-ups. Marc would tell us which one he liked or didn’t like, but the lap-time was very similar. We couldn’t find any difference in the data, so we went to watch track-side. Then we understood, because the riding style was different. Marc would always adapt to the machine. Always searching for the best style to produce the lap-time.”
“Jorge Lorenzo is different. His riding is like a Swiss watch. Every lap is exactly the same. Then once he finds a good set-up he is unbeatable. With Marc, even if the machine is 100 per cent, he’ll always be pushing. With MotoGP tyres you always lose the grip. Valentino Rossi is very, very good at managing the whole race. At the end of the race he is always fighting at the top. He’s not like Marc and not like Jorge.”
During Casey Stoner’s time at Ducati, he often complained that the bike “would be different every week, so it needed to be ridden in a different way almost every weekend”.
This certainly doesn’t auger well if you subscribe to Nakamoto’s assessment of Lorenzo’s abilities, but there appear to be a few more strings to Lorenzo’s bow than most give him credit for.
The current Michelins have been a troublesome beast for most riders this year, especially going into corners where the tyre requires a leap of faith that tends to spook most riders. Lorenzo however appears to be pushing harder on entry; having somehow found a ‘eureka’ moment that no-one else dares to investigate and thus has reaped the benefits in lap time.
With Lorenzo still expanding his repertoire and Ducati finding form, the stars may be well and truly aligning.
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