MotoGP News
Date: 4/September/2011
Jorge Lorenzo insists he has no regrets, despite his third victory of the MotoGP season looking like it has come too late in terms of his title defence.
The Factory Yamaha rider gained nine points on Casey Stoner at Misano, cutting the Honda's rider's championship advantage from 44 to 35 points.
But even if Lorenzo wins all of the remaining five rounds, second places for Stoner would be more than enough to secure Honda's first MotoGP crown since 2006.
Both Stoner and Lorenzo have failed to finish once this year. Stoner was knocked down by Valentino Rossi at Jerez, while Lorenzo crashed out of the wet Silverstone race.
Jerez aside, Stoner has been the model of consistency, finishing on the podium at the twelve other rounds and winning seven races.
Lorenzo's season has been more complicated.
The Spanish star recovered to sixth after being brought down by Marco Simoncelli at Assen, then slumped to fourth at Brno and Indianapolis after a bad tyre choice and off-form weekend respectively.
Without those 'dips' Lorenzo would be well within striking distance of Stoner, but the 24-year-old - who has firmly emerged from former team-mate Valentino Rossi's shadow this season - isn’t wasting time pondering ifs, buts and maybes.
"No regrets. I have the mentally where I don’t regret what I have done in the past," Lorenzo said of his championship chances.
"If you think about the mistake I made at Silverstone and what happened at Assen, then these last two races [Brno and Indianapolis]. Maybe we could now be very close to Casey.
"But he also crashed at Jerez and he has won seven races this year, so he deserves to have this advantage.
"Let's try to win the next races. It's not so easy, but if we can do that maybe at the end of the championship we will have more options."
Stoner showed a rare sign of weakness at Misano, when he faded from Lorenzo's rear wheel to a distant third place - behind team-mate Dani Pedrosa - after struggling with jet lag due to the hectic race schedule.
Stoner, seeking to add to his 2007 world title for Ducati, explained: "I haven’t recovered well from Indianapolis. It's been a difficult week with sleep deprivation.
"I tried to save as much energy as possible for the race and at first everything was going well. Then I started to pick up the pace and just got to the point where I started getting tired. Simple as that.
"I was weak under brakes and was running wide. That allowed Jorge to get away and I was still losing chunks of energy. I saw Dani was closing so I knew third place was the way to go today."
Round 14 of the season will be held at Aragon, Spain, on September 18.
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