Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo has appeared to have regained his good form that has been missing from the last few rounds of the MotoGP championship, and he made it back onto the podium at the Red Bull Ring to hold off Valentino Rossi to take third.
The last time that the Spaniard was on the podium was during the sixth round at Mugello where he claimed the top spot on the rostrum. Since then he has either crashed or been massively off the pace, but he turned it around today and declared that third felt ‘almost like a victory’.
Most importantly for Lorenzo was that he was able to close the gap on Marc Marquez at the top of the standings, by gaining five points in Austria. But the Repsol Honda man still has a 43 point advantage over the Yamaha rider.
“When you have won forty or fifty races like me finishing third is not the same as the victory, but we can feel this third place almost like a victory because Ducati were almost in another world during the test, and in qualifying and the second part of the race,” said Lorenzo at the track.
“So finally finishing third just two seconds from the winner is a great result and we are very satisfied and I kept concentration all race, even with the rear tyre moving a lot in the last part of the race. I am very happy and we will keep working.
“We recovered some points with Marc, which is important in the championship and anything can happen, which is what we saw yesterday and Marc crashed and was almost seriously injured, and in this championship anything can happen so you need to be focused and have lots of luck.”