The new Honda driver spoke to Red Bull in an interview carried out in December but which, for contract reasons, has only now been published. He returned to the new challenge that awaits him this year.
It's now official: Jorge Lorenzo is a full-fledged Honda rider. Freed from his contract with Ducati, he appeared in the colors of his new team at the start of the year. If his first official interview was widely watched, he did another, for Red Bull, in which he also spoke about his new adventure at HRC: “I am very moved because everything is changing again. Two years ago, everything had already completely changed: my team, my bike and the people around me as well as those who worked alongside me. Now I'm doing it again. On the one hand, it's more difficult, because when you stay on the same bike you progress more and more and you know more secrets that make it easier to reach the maximum. On the other hand, we have the challenge and the emotion. I have this extra challenge and the emotion that the rest of the drivers don't have. We lose things on one side but we gain things on the other. »
However, the Mallorcan does not want to put more pressure on himself than he already has and believes that the other top drivers will have the advantage of experience on him : “I don’t know if I will be ready to win the title in my first season with Honda. I will obviously train to arrive as ready as possible for the first race in Qatar, but it is not easy, even more so now that we only have three or four tests before the start of the season. We will have to fight against Marc Márquez who is a great rider and who will be in his sixth or seventh year on the same bike. It's very complicated. I will also have to fight against Andrea Dovizioso who is in his seventh year with Ducati and against Valentino Rossi who has more than ten years of experience with the Yamaha. There will be a lot of riders with a lot of experience on their bikes and it will be very difficult to beat them. I don't know if I'll be ready. »
Jorge Lorenzo really seems not to want to expect too much at the moment, and arrives as humbly as possible in this new team: “If we talk in numbers, it is clear that we are one of the strongest duos in MotoGP history. The statistics of victories, titles, talent and speed do not lie but, for the moment, it is clear that I must arrive with a lot of humility. I have to be humble and try to learn everything I can from the people around me in the team and also from Marc, who has a lot of experience with this bike. »
