The Czech Republic Grand Prix, which was declared โwet' by Race Direction, started on a damp Brno track surface on Sunday afternoon, however it soon started to dry out and the final outcome of the race was decided above all by the different strategies chosen by the riders and the teams for the change-over of the bikes.
For Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo, it was definitely an unlucky race, after the Spanish rider had led for the first three laps and then returned to the pits on lap 5.
Unfortunately a setback during the bike change-over lost him precious time in the pit-lane and he returned to the track in nineteenth place, a fair distance behind the other top riders.
In the end he could only make it back up to fifteenth overall.
โToday's race was a real shame,โ he said. โThe weather was so unpredictable and it stopped raining when I was really fast on the damp track. I felt pretty good and I think we could have been able to fight for the win if the conditions had remained the same. โ
โThen we made an error with the bike change, because when the team signalled to me to return to the pits the bike wasn't ready and we lost a bit of time, which ruined the rest of my race."
"For sure we'll learn from this negative experience and won't repeat the same error, but the positive thing from this weekend is that we were always competitive, both in the wet and the dry. Now we're going to a circuit, where we should be amongst the favourites and so we'll do everything possible to demonstrate it in the race.โ