The Message To Ducati

Grendaseba.com-Why Jorge Lorenzo’s fourth win of 2016 was possibly the most important victory of his MotoGP career

A few months ago, many people believed that Jorge Lorenzo had given up on the 2016 season because his title defence had collapsed like a game of Jenga played by a bunch of two-year-olds.

You can perhaps understand his critics’ way of thinking. After winning three of the first six races, Lorenzo apparently fell to pieces. He was beaten at Assen, Sachsenring, Red Bull Ring, Brno, Silverstone, Misano, Aragon, Motegi, Phillip Island and Sepang. That’s 10 consecutive races, with just three visits to the podium; his worst-ever performance in MotoGP, even worse than his bone-crunching rookie season in 2008.

Some people suggested that his brain was already elsewhere – thinking about his new job in Bologna and his big, fat Phillip Morris pay cheque. Others suggested he had obviously given up caring about winning more races for Yamaha. Others believed he was giving himself a bit of a holiday, cruising through the last few weeks of his old job, no longer caring if he doesn’t win the employee of the month award.

But this is utter nonsense. Racers don’t think like that. A large proportion of any top racer’s brain is what we will call the F**K YOU department. This sector of the brain is entirely given over to proving a point to the rest of the world; it is the sector that gets racers out of bed in the morning, it is the sector that has them grinding away in the gym for six hours a day and it is the sector that has them focused on getting back on the bike when their broken body is screaming at them to take a holiday: please, please, just a couple of weeks off sitting by the pool, letting the broken wrist/arm/collarbone/leg heal.