Lorenzo: I expected to finish last
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Jorge Lorenzo says finishing in 14th place and under one minute behind the leaders came as a shock result at the British MotoGP on his injury comeback for Repsol Honda.The five-time world champion made his return to action this weekend after two months out with fractured vertebrae suffered in a at Assen.Struggling with the pain from his back and looking to avoid ing at all costs in order not to risk further injury, Lorenzo admits he expected to be at the back of the pack given he had been around three seconds slower than the leading riders all weekend going into the Silverstone race.“I honestly expected to finish last, but I have always been in front of Abraham or in front of Syahrin, who was much faster than me during the weekend,” Lorenzo said. “At the end, even if I was very smooth with the throttle trying to save the tyre because I knew that I had medium-medium and most of the riders were hard-hard.“The rear tyre dropped a lot in the last laps, so that’s why Syahrin could overtake me and take the position, after he was following me all the race. And also, honestly, I started having a lot of pain in the back, so I had to reduce the pace a little bit.”Having been so far off the pace during practice and qualifying, Lorenzo says he was treating his comeback weekend purely as practice to regain strength and fitness on a MotoGP bike after two months on the sidelines.The Spanish rider is concerned completing the full 20-lap race has put further strain on his injury but believes the benefits of racing again will show as he recovers next week in preparation for the two-day in-season Misano test taking place on 29-30 September.“The back is very sore. Honestly, more sore than yesterday and Friday, because I rode 20 laps in a row going faster than all the rest of the weekend,” he said. “It didn’t help the injury, now there’s a lot of inflammation and I have a lot of pain.“I guess tomorrow I will be better, second day will be even better. After four or five days we have two days of test in Misano, I think I will be fitter, and especially I will be able to train much better these two or three weeks to be stronger in Misano.”
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