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Jorge Lorenzo said goodbye to MotoGP in 2019 after a final season with Honda colours, but his mind still harks back to the past, when he shared the Yamaha garage with Rossi.
Speaking on the "Tengo Un Plan" podcast, the Majorcan revealed how despite the victory obtained in 2015, relations with the tuning-fork manufacturer were now tense as the feeling was that the team favoured Valentino. "We were fighting for the title. I had this feeling especially in Valencia and it bothered me,” he said.
Also for this reason he decided to give way to the lure of Ducati, at that time certainly not at the level it is today, convinced by Dall'Igna's ability to achieve every objective, even the most difficult ones. “I knew that he would be able to build a great bike and that the future would be the Desmosedici because he is stubborn – he explained – It was a bit like when Hamilton left McLaren to go to Mercedes. At the time the team hadn't won anything yet he knew that one day it would become the most competitive of the group."
In 2017 the move to the Borgo Panigale team finally materialized, where the Iberian earned 15% more than in the Japanese team. “Many say that I left for a question of money, in reality it was just motivation.”
Unfortunately for him the initial enthusiasm dissipated almost immediately: "If I rode it like the M1 it didn't work. Until I realized that I had to adapt to the bike I couldn't be fast, but after a year and a half without results the team ran out of patience. It no longer had any confidence in me and I was even offered a deal worth less than a million euros, when at the time one could even earn twelve. They preferred someone like Petrucci,” he revealed.
At that point, for the 36-year-old, a call to Alberto Puig represented salvation from a sensational exit from the premier class. “When I won at Mugello in 2018 I had already signed for Honda, but nobody knew it. The move to HRC should have been a progress but instead it was a disaster,” he confessed.
In addition to the lack of results there was also the Assen accident in which he broke two vertebrae. "I was very scared and this led me from thinking about becoming a champion to wanting to retire and enjoy life. Before, I was obsessed, I only thought about working and I wasn't happy."
Finally, Lorenzo had a go at the Japanese company, guilty of having caused many riders to quit, from Pedrosa to Espargarò, and also forcing Marquez to leave. “The RC213V is constantly getting worse and there is a risk of just crashing, without winning anything”.
