Jorge Lorenzo is determined to maintain his championship push despite the damage done by the crash with Alvaro Bautista at Assen last weekend. The Yamaha rider suffered a sprained ankle as well as losing the newly installed engine, eating into his allocation of six for the season.
Despite needing crutches to walk around the paddock, Lorenzo took his YZR-M1 to third place in Friday practice and thinks the team are doing a good job to help overcome the problems.
“I have more pain walking than on the bike which is good and adrenaline helps with it too. I'm not 100% and I get more tired in the upper body compensating but I think we still did a good job this morning and this afternoon. The injury, the loss of points and the loss of the engine makes it more difficult for the Championship but this just gives me more motivation to keep working and come back stronger to win.”
Teammate Ben Spies was tenth quickest after a tough day which saw changes intended to improve the set-up backfire. The American was happier with the feeling of the bike in the wet second session and is unconcerned at the possibility of a wet race on Sunday.
“This morning was a bit frustrating, we went out to try a couple of things that didn't work, the bike wasn't that bad we just made it a bit too slow. We ended up with a decent setting this afternoon when it was wet. I'm not too upset because when it's rained here the last couple of years I've been horrible but this year although we were ninth we weren't that far from the front. My feeling with the bike is good if it's a wet race so we'll wait and see if we get a dry session tomorrow.”
