Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo took a gamble with the soft-compound front Bridgestone in today’s Brno MotoGP as he wasn’t comfortable with the hard option on the brakes or over the track’s recently-appeared bumps.

But the former world champion said that he didn’t ride well and needed to be more aggressive. Had he been, he thinks he could have stayed with winner Dani Pedrosa and passed him in the closing laps as his pace was higher the nearer they got to teh chequered flag.

“Sometimes the soft tyre give me more cornering speed. Normally I use the same front as the other riders but not at this track. The asphalt was worse than the other years, bumpy and I really was surprised to find the hard was not absorbing the bumps. Maybe it was not good with my riding style so with low temperature also we decided on the soft, and we were the only one,” said Lorenzo, speaking at the track.

“For hard braking, it is not the best but for corner speed it dropped after two laps but then I was expecting more dropping but it was stable. That was my luck as I wouldn’t have been able to make second place.

“We are working very hard to improve the bike and we are getting it. After warm-up I was really happy with some setup that we made, I expected a lot from this race but I was in a bad position for the first corner and it wasn’t easy.

“I was good to pass the others quickly otherwise I couldn’t open the gap. I felt good at the beginning with traction and in the braking but one or two laps I start to have some problem in the braking, so I wasn’t able to keep the 56.0 and Dani was getting faster.

“Maybe I needed to be a little more aggressive and ride better. I didn’t ride very well. He was riding very well but with a bit more risk and riding better I could have followed his wheel as at the end with the soft front I was really competitive. One more lap I may have chance to win. But when Dani is inspired, he is difficult to follow.