It is with four victories under his belt, won at the Dutch Grand Prix in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010, that Lorenzo will try to restore his image after his guilty scramble in Barcelona, but also to move up the provisional ranking of the Championship of the World where he only appears in fifteenth position, behind the rookie Joan Mir and the Aprilia of Aleix Espargaró.
As during his time with Ducati, Jorge is having a hard time getting used to his new bike. In 7 Grands Prix, he has not yet entered the top 10 once. His best weekend took place in France with eleventh place at the finish, after having achieved his best qualification the day before with the eighth time.
But he is progressing, that’s undeniable. His unfortunate Barcelona blunder overshadowed the fact that he was at the time of the incident battling for second position, with Andrea Dovizioso, Maverick Vinales et Valentino Rossi.
If he won as we saw four times at Assen (in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010), on the other hand he has only returned since 2010 to the third step of the podium in 2015. Otherwise, it's is rather a collection since fifth (2013), sixth (2011), seventh (2018), tenth (2016) and fifteenth (2017) places not very advantageous compared to his standing as triple MotoGP World Champion.
And only his 2010 victory was won at Assen in MotoGP, that of 2004 having been in 125, and those of 2006 and 2007 in 250 cm3. In short, Lorenzo has only won one GP at Assen in MotoGP in eleven participations. It will therefore be difficult to make him the favorite. But the question is not there because he recognizes that he first wants to progress before winning, supported in this by Honda.
According to Lorenzo, “ We come here after our most regular weekend of the year in Barcelona. The end result was not what we wanted, but all weekend we were able to be competitive and continue to improve the bike, which is what I want to do again this weekend.”
“If we continue to work like this with the Repsol Honda team, we can once again have the same speed as in Barcelona ».
The way Honda sees things is interesting: “ The Assen TT represents an opportunity for Jorge Lorenzo to once again demonstrate the speed he showed during the first laps of the Catalan Grand Prix. With his sensations improving on the Honda RC213V, he continues to get closer and closer to the front.”
“The time elapsed between trials (Editor's note: understand the tests on Monday after the Barcelona GP) and the following round of the MotoGP World Championship allowed Lorenzo to recover from his crash during practice. Honda will also celebrate its 60th anniversary during the “Assen TT” weekend. A number of legendary bikes and riders will be present this weekend ».
Happy birthday !
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
1 Marc MÁRQUEZ – Honda 140 points
2 Andrea DOVIZIOSO – Ducati 103
3 Alex RINS – Suzuki 101
4 Danilo PETRUCCI – Ducati 98
5 Valentino ROSSI – Yamaha 72
6 Jack MILLER – Ducati 53
7 Fabio QUARTARARO – Yamaha 51
8 Takaaki NAKAGAMI – Honda 48
9 Pol ESPARGARÓ – KTM 47
10 Cal CRUTCHLOW – Honda 42
11 Maverick VIÑALES – Yamaha 40
12 Franco MORBIDELLI – Yamaha 34
13 Aleix ESPARGARÓ – Aprilia 27
14 Joan MIR – Suzuki 22
15 Jorge LORENZO – Honda 19
16 Johann ZARCO – KTM 16
17 Miguel OLIVEIRA – KTM 12
18 Andrea IANNONE – Aprilia 12
19 Michele PIRRO – Ducati 9
20 Francesco BAGNAIA – Ducati 9
21 Tito RABAT – Ducati 9
22 Stefan BRADL – Honda 6
23 Sylvain GUINTOLI – Suzuki 3
24 Karel ABRAHAM – Ducati 2
25 Hafizh SYAHRIN – KTM 2
Provisional classification of the Team and Manufacturer Championships:
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