Title possible but still much to prove, says Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo hasn’t ruled out a surprise charge for the MotoGP world title but the factory Ducati rider says there is still much to prove before any thoughts of championship glory can be considered.

Lorenzo has sent expectations soaring following back-to-back victories at Mugello and Catalunya and is now gunning for a third win in a row this weekend at Assen.

The three-time premier class champion – who is set to join Marc Marquez in the Repsol Honda squad in 2019 – has turned his fortunes around after struggling for results on the Italian machine, but Lorenzo insists he will not allow himself to be carried away as he suddenly finds himself being mooted as a possible title contender.

In response to a question at Thursday’s press conference informing him that Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali had backed him to win the title, Lorenzo joked: “Maybe I will ask for a Caribbean house?”

He then added: “Speaking seriously, we all want to fight for the title until the end but we need to be calm, we just won two races and still we need to demonstrate many things in different tracks, so (I will) just stay calm and humble and work hard like now.”

Lorenzo has not found Assen to be a rewarding venue in MotoGP over the years but says he will approach the weekend with a fresh outlook as he aims to build on his new-found confidence with the Ducati.

“Obviously the last five or six years, for some reasons I didn’t get good results in Assen but before it was one of my favourite tracks in the previous categories; but in MotoGP from 2010 until last year, I didn’t get good results,” he said.

“Anyway, as I always say, every year is another year and I have now a very good confidence, we won the last two races. I was checking yesterday the race from last year and I saw some Ducati bikes working really well on Sunday, like (Alvaro) Bautista, (Scott) Redding or even (Danilo) Petrucci, who could fight for the victory until the very end.

“So that means our bike can work here, especially now that we have a good base, so let’s go with an open mentality and see what happens. I think we are going to lucky to have a sunny race because it is always nice to ride in sunny conditions.”

Lorenzo’s back-to-back wins have injected new life into his fledgling Ducati career and the 31-year-old is relieved his hard work eventually paid off.

“It has been a hard period and a period that I struggled so much and I worked so much about everything, to find all the details needed to be competitive,” he said.

“Finally it was worth it and it was a great emotion in Mugello and Montemelo, we enjoyed a lot and now we start to work again, so let’s see here.”