Jorge Lorenzo believes Ducati has to find “two to three more tenths of speed” to be able to win multiple MotoGP races in a row.
Ducati has tallied up four victories this season, with Lorenzo managing back-to-back successes in Italy and Barcelona, while teammate Andrea Dovizioso won in Qatar and last time out in the Czech Republic.
Asked whether a title tilt was still possible in the second half of the year, Lorenzo – who trails Marc Marquez by 76 points – admits Ducati needs to find more laptime in order to eat away at Marquez's lead, and struggles to imagine the Italian marque winning “five or six races in a row” at the moment.
“We will need two or three more tenths of speed to be able to win four or five races in a row, and to recover so many points on Marc,” Lorenzo said during the pre-Austrian Grand Prix press conference.
“At this moment, this is still impossible because the performance is very equal in more or less all the brands, so this is difficult.
“Marc is always competitive in all the tracks, he don't crash so much in this moment.
“So MotoGP is MotoGP, everything is possible, it's a dangerous sport, you can have an injury, break the engine.
“But for the moment the difference in points is so much and I don't see us winning five or six races in a row.”
Dovizioso, who is eight points ahead of Lorenzo in third, echoed his stablemate's comments, conceding Ducati is 'missing something', but has vowed to keep pushing “until the end”.
“I answer always in the same way because I believe that to recover a lot of points to Marc is very, very difficult,” last year's Red Bull Ring winner said when posed the same question.
“So before thinking about that [title], I think we have to improve our situation. It's really good, but still I think we miss something.
“Until we are really good in every area, it's really difficult to recover a lot of points to Marc.
“Marc in a bad situation is on the podium, so it's difficult. We know in MotoGP everything is possible, and the mentality is this; until the end, we will try.
“But I am more focused on that before thinking about the championship.”
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