Jorge Lorenzo says the “key” to taking victory in the MotoGP Austrian Grand Prix was his “big improvement” in performance through the third sector of the Red Bull Ring.
Lorenzo admitted following qualifying that he would study videos of his rivals through the third sector of track, having struggled for pace through the weekend there.
The Ducati rider battled with poleman Marc Marquez and prevailed in a late scrap to claim his third win of the season, pinning his success on the improvements he made in sector three, as well as his gamble to run the soft rear tyre.
“Was a great decision to use the soft rear tyre, but I needed to manage a lot in the first 10 laps, not to overheat the tyre because was very hot and the soft was very, very soft in some parts of the tyre,” he said.
“But was also key, the big improvement I made in sector three, because yesterday I was losing almost two tenths there compared to Marc and [Andrea] Dovizioso.
“Then I make a big improvement in just one afternoon, trying to watch some videos, trying to understand which position of my body I needed to change to be faster in that sector.
“And it really really works. During the race I was improving in that sector, I was catching Marc in that sector, where we were losing a lot last year.
“Also the management of the tyre, at the beginning, not so much because Marc was pushing so much with the hard rear tyre, I was probably saving three percent, five percent, not so much but enough to keep the life of the tyre very well and wait for my moment.
“When Marc start to lose a little bit of braking, stopping and especially acceleration, I was starting to catch him little by little, we went from 1.2s of disadvantage to zero.”
Lorenzo's win puts him a point clear of teammate Dovizioso in third in the standings, 71 adrift of leader Marquez, and says Ducati's “probability” now is to fight for second in the championship.
“For the classification for sure would be better if Marc finished fifth or sixth, but he's always there, if he's not winning he's second, so it's very difficult to catch him in the points.
“But it's not really our goal. If we are lucky and we recover for some reasons the points, maybe we can fight at the end, but it's very difficult.
“The probability is that we can fight for the second place in the championship, now is very close, Valentino [Rossi] is not so far and I overtook Andrea by one point.
“So our goal is to keep having fun, to keep learning with this bike to the end and to keep in that form, to stay always to fight for the podium and fight for victories."
