Lorenzo: Team-mate to Marquez, like team-mate to Rossi

When Jorge Lorenzo joined MotoGP with Yamaha in 2008, it was as team-mate to reigning five-time champion Valentino Rossi ‘in the peak of his career’.

Fast forward to 2019 and Lorenzo now joins Repsol Honda as team-mate to reigning five-time champion Marc Marquez.

It’s a similarity that has not been lost on Lorenzo

“During my career in MotoGP I’ve shared a pit box with four riders, Valentino first then Spies then Dovi and now Marc,” he said.

“The situation now is quite similar to the when I started in MotoGP in 2008, because at that time Valentino was in the peak of his career.

“He didn’t win [the title] in 2006 and 2007 but he was fighting for the world title and he knew the [Yamaha] a lot.

“So it is more or less the same situation that I have now.

“I have come here to a new team with Marc who is a very, very strong team-mate and a world champion and knows a lot about the [Honda].”

Rossi had been at Yamaha for four seasons when Lorenzo arrived, while Marquez has spent his entire six-year MotoGP career with Honda.

The Spaniard described younger countryman Marquez as having a ‘phenomenal’ partnership with the RC213V and says he has a lot to learn from the #93.

“Now it is very difficult to adapt in MotoGP as the bikes are very complicated, as I found out with the Ducati. So it is not simple [to change bikes] but my adaption with the Honda, even if it wasn’t feeling [perfectly] right, was going quite well in Valencia and Jerez.

“For sure in that area Marc has an advantage. I’d say he is phenomenal, and I have a lot of things to learn from him. So I come into the team with a lot of happiness and proudness but also a lot of humility to try, little by little, to understand everything and get results.

“Let’s see how it goes.”

The triple MotoGP champion underwent surgery on Monday for a broken scaphoid bone in his left wrist, an injury that will rule him out of the forthcoming Sepang test.

“In Valencia it was all about body position and trying to do as many laps as possible while knowing I wasn’t fit,”Lorenzo said of his two Honda outings.

“Then in Jerez we started testing new parts, especially on the second day, so we could see some new little parts that were better than the previous ones.

“In Sepang there will probably be even more new pieces to test, but I will not be able to test. Anyway, I will do it at the [last] test in Qatar.”

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While it’s a big blow to miss the three-days in Malaysia, Lorenzo knows ‘it could be worse’.

“More or less I will have the same number of tests (three) as when I went from Yamaha to Ducati, so it could be worse,” said Lorenzo, who was denied an additional test for Ducati while still under contract to Yamaha.

“It could also be worse as in [the injury] could happen during the middle of the championship or missing four races in a row.”

Lorenzo, who won three races for Ducati, missed four races near the end of last season when he suffered damage to the radius bone of the same wrist in Thailand.