By David Emmett
Jorge Lorenzo's record of front row starts this season has been incredibly impressive. He has qualified on the front row of the grid at every race this year except for Phillip Island, a fact that sorely disappointed the Spanish prodigy. But despite his impressive qualification record, Lorenzo's starts are still one of his weakest points. Lorenzo has had trouble getting off the line, and often found himself having to battle his way past other, faster starting riders before he was in a position to battle for the lead.
According to the leading Italian website GPOne.com, Lorenzo has been working to solve the problem, but with testing limited, he has been forced to turn to other means. Reportedly, Lorenzo visited the Circuit de Catalunya track at Barcelona twice, specifically to work on his starts. The Spaniard used a modified version of Yamaha's R1 streetbike, which raised problems of its own. According to GPOne.com, differences in the clutch, power delivery and suspension are such that it (unsurprisingly) behaves completely differently to his Yamaha M1 MotoGP bike. However, Lorenzo has persevered, feeling that any practice is better than no practice, despite the differences.
