Jorge Lorenzo struggled in the first practice for the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island today after suffering food poisoning.
The Fiat Yamaha rider explained “I just couldn’t go fast today. I wasn’t feeling too good – I think that I ate something last night which didn’t agree with me and I felt very weak, which made it very hard to ride the bike.”
Lorenzo suffered a crash in the closing stages of the session after managing to avoid potential accidents.
“We had some spin and not enough grip or confidence and there were two times where I nearly crashed before I actually did. Luckily I didn’t hurt myself at all and now I will just try to get a good night’s sleep and then hopefully I will be much better tomorrow.”
Daniele Romagnoli, Team Manager explained the problems that the young Spaniard had “Today we didn’t quite make the good start that we’ve maybe become used to lately, plus Jorge wasn’t feeling very well; he was quite weak which made his job much harder. The main problem is on the rear, we don’t have enough grip on the entry to the corner or under acceleration and at this track these areas are particularly important. Unfortunately towards the end of the session Jorge slid off at turn four when trying some improvements. He was okay but now we need to work hard to analyse all the information that we have in order to be in better shape for tomorrow, when we hope that he will be feeling better too.”
Team-mate Rossi posted the fastest time of the session ahead of the Ducati of Stoner and Honda of Pedrosa
Photo credit: Fiat Yamaha
