Two years ago Jorge Lorenzo dropped the bombshell that he would be departing Yamaha after nine years to try and do something many have tried, but all bar one has failed: win the MotoGP World Championship on a Ducati.
Two years later, and without a fourth premier class title, Lorenzo will begin afresh in 2019 with Repsol Honda, after Ducati opted against retaining the Spaniard in favour of Pramac's Danilo Petrucci.
Ducati and Philip Morris reportedly paid Lorenzo in the region of €12m to tempt him away from Yamaha. This mammoth figure was meant to bag Ducati the final piece of the puzzle it had spent the decade following Casey Stoner's 2007 title win building. Instead, Bologna's hero emerged from right under their nose, with Andrea Dovizioso – reportedly paid €2m for his 2017/18 stint – taking the marque to runner-up spot and six wins in 2017.
Lorenzo, in contrast, managed only three podiums and just seventh in the standings. It took the Spaniard at least half the season to begin to properly adapt to the difficult Desmosedici, with Ducati's radical aero fairing introduced for that year's Czech Grand Prix pushing him in the right direction.
Perhaps it was unfair to expect so much from Lorenzo in his debut Ducati year. After all, the differences between the Desmosedici and the M1, especially in cornering, are night and day. He spent nine years on the silky-smooth Yamaha, and another six on 125cc and 250cc machinery. The corner speed style he had developed in that time would not be so easily adapted to the Ducati, as was proven.
But only three podiums was well below anyone's expectations. With contracts for 2019 to be signed early this year, he needed a big start to the 2018 campaign. Unfortunately, his woes continued.
An unofficial Sepang lap record during the test, not unlike his strong Valencia test performance in 2016, flattered to deceive. By the Thailand test, Lorenzo was lost in a tailspin, even testing the 2017 bike as he looked for an answer. He knew exactly what the problem was.
“In 2018 they changed the bike, the fuel tank was lower and didn't support me in braking, and I was getting tired. And I told the engineers these things, but they didn't understand me or didn't believe so much about that. So we took a long time for this little last piece to arrive,” Lorenzo said in a BT Sport interview.
From the second half of 2017, Lorenzo was showing he had speed in the early stages of races to run at the front. But fatigue would set in. Throughout the winter of 2018, he pleaded for changes to be made to the ergonomics of the fuel tank. Ducati elected to continue as it was. Dovizioso was having no such troubles, and Lorenzo hardly had the power of influence on his side after 2017. But he was adamant the speed was there, he just needed something to give him the endurance to see that pace through to the end of a race.
The first four races of the year were a disaster. A brake failure led to a scary crash at Turn 5 in Qatar, though he languished outside the top 10 even before hitting trouble. He was, by Lorenzo's lofty standards, a pathetic 15th in Argentina and a lowly 11th in Texas. A podium was on the cards at Jerez before he was wiped out when he tangled with Honda's Dani Pedrosa and Dovizioso late on. However, without this, he was still visibly the slower of the two Ducati riders.
A sixth at Le Mans left Lorenzo with just 16 points from the first five races and 14th in the standings. Keen to stay at Ducati regardless of his plight and irrespective of its apparent unwillingness to listen to his feedback, his fate was sealed. He would be leaving the Italian team at the end of the year, retirement now a real possibility as he later revealed.
“I was like almost a little depressed, because when I was seeing the possibility to retire in my head I was getting depressed,” he admitted. “Normally when I imagine my retirement, in some way I was feeling happy and relieved because I will not feel any more the pressure and I will not get injured any more. But really I didn't expect when I just started feeling this possibility of retirement I would be getting depressed. And it was like this, was very close for the retirement. It's true I had another possibility to go in the satellite team with Yamaha. It was a good option but not the one I wanted.”
Lorenzo soon opened up dialogue with Honda, who would be losing Pedrosa, and he soon sealed a two-year deal to form HRC's dream team with Marc Marquez.
At the same time, Ducati relented and gave Lorenzo the fuel tank modification he had so desired. Dominant wins followed at Mugello and Catalunya. A third came after a stunning battle with Marquez in Austria. Three poles on the bounce from Silverstone to Aragon hinted at possibly more, and a chance at runner-up spot ahead of Dovizioso. But a wrist injury sustained in Thailand curtailed the remainder of his season. As a result, he was ninth in the final standings and with three fewer points than in 2017.
Ducati's hastiness, coupled with its chronic stubbornness, has seen it lose arguably the fastest rider it has had since Stoner, and a Marquez/Honda beater. This is not the first time a lack of vision has blighted Ducati. During Stoner's absence through illness in '09, it all but burned its bridge with the Australian. He would depart for Honda at the end of '10 and usher in a barren period for the Bologna outfit. Stoner has departed again from Ducati, leaving his test rider role after claims the team was not listening to his feedback. Rumours are strong he could follow Lorenzo back to Honda next year.
During Valentino Rossi's nightmare tenure, the race department refused to alter the way it worked, stopping long-time Rossi crew chief Jeremy Burgess from working his magic. Ducati did at least learn from this; Gigi Dall'Igna's arrival in '14 as General Manager led to him shaping up the race department, effectively leading to the success it has enjoyed in recent years.
That proved to be Rossi's Ducati legacy. Time will tell what Lorenzo's will be. Ducati now has two potential future stars in its midst at Pramac in the form of Jack Miller – who will be factory-backed in 2019 – and Moto2 world champion Francesco Bagnaia. Both will likely be in high demand come the next contract cycle. With it not out with the realms of possibility Dovizioso could well walk away at the end of 2020, it is imperative Ducati does not make the same mistakes it did with Lorenzo.
In the short term, Lorenzo's tenure and the coming together of Ducati's “most complete” bike ever cannot be mere coincidence. The improvements made to the chassis this year led to LCR Honda's and former one-time Ducati man Cal Crutchlow to say during the Sachsenring weekend the GP18 was the best bike on the grid in the corners. Lorenzo himself believes certain areas of the bike would not have developed at such a rate without his input. He would not specify just exactly where his influence flourished, but strong performances at key past bogey circuits such as Aragon [where Lorenzo was on pole and Dovizioso just missed the win] and Phillip Island [where Dovizioso and Lorenzo's stand-in Alvaro Bautista were third and fourth] suggests his comments were not made merely to be self-serving.
“Obviously – it's not nice to say – but probably without my coming to the team they wouldn't have evolved the bike so fast in some areas,” he said at the end of his Ducati farewell in Valencia.
“I believe they discovered some areas that didn't work so much before my arrival, this makes me happy, but obviously was a matter of time before Gigi Dall'Igna and the engineers get more victories than the past years and fight for the championship, because when you are so tough in your head and you have a goal and you dedicate all your life to this goal finally good things arrive. Obviously with me probably things arrive a little bit quicker, and this made me proud, they are a nice group of people, you will see in the future they will make very good results as now.”
With the new year looming, the question arises: will history repeat itself at Honda for Lorenzo?
Two things suggest the answer will be no. Firstly, the RC213V is a difficult bike. It has improved somewhat, and is perhaps a little more agile than the Ducati – though Crutchlow did admit the bike was harder to ride than the 2017 version after his Argentina win. Nevertheless, Lorenzo will be adapting from one difficult bike to another. While it will not be an overnight process, fourth overall on just his second outing on the Honda at the Jerez test while still recovering from injury points towards him heading in the right direction.
Secondly, Honda was already playing around with fuel tank ergonomics from day one of the Valencia test. Already, it seems, HRC is doing something which Ducati did not (initially) and is listening to his feedback. Comments from Honda management over the past few months exclaiming it will build two completely different bikes for Lorenzo and Marquez if it has to is in stark contrast to those Ducati made in 2016, when it said Lorenzo would have to meet it half way in terms of adapting to the GP17.
Of course, there is the unknown of how Lorenzo and Marquez will get on as team-mates. Their relationship has been frosty at times, and recently so to boot. Lorenzo famously blamed Marquez for the former crashing out of the Aragon race and fracturing his foot.
But make no mistake, Honda has played a blinder in signing Lorenzo. Should he prove to be quick, and there is no suggestion he will not be, HRC has formed the superstar dream team Stoner's departure at the end of 2012 denied it. Should Lorenzo suffer, it will be of little concern. Marquez is a sure thing whatever the bike is like, and Crutchlow can be relied upon to pick up the pieces on his LCR machine. Crucially for Honda, Lorenzo is not on a Ducati going quickly, like he was from Mugello onwards this year. Honda has won whatever Lorenzo does.
Lorenzo's time at Ducati may not have yielded the championship it was supposed to, but it has arguably put the Italian manufacturer in the best position to do so with the steps forward made with the bike. Ironically, he could be beaten next year by a bike he helped create.
Equally, he may have left Ducati with the perfect bike, but without the perfect rider to take it to glory.
