Wilco Zeelenberg says pre-season preparation helped Jorge Lorenzo win title – MotoGP news
According to Wilco Zeelenberg, boss of Yamaha Factory Racing, the pre-season preparations that the team and Jorge Lorenzo made for the 2012 MotoGP season were vital factors contributing to Lorenzo ending up 2012 MotoGP World Champion.
Lorenzo won 6 races, finished 2nd in 10 Grand Prix rounds and posting a total of 16 podiums in the 2012 season, he went on to claim the World Champion title with 350 championship points to his name. In the inaugural 1000cc MotoGP campaign, the Spaniard won
4 out of the initial 6 races while Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner, Lorenzo’s Honda rivals struggled with chatter courtesy a new generation Bridgestone rear tyre that was used by Honda in their new 1000cc bike.
Highlighting the importance of pre-season preparation that Yamaha and Lorenzo did, Zeelenberg told Motorcyclenews.com, “Jorge was very consistent but the key point was Yamaha's and Jorge's pre-season preparation. At the first test this year in Sepang we
were very competitive. Jorge did many laps and was the only rider to do a race simulation at the second Sepang test.”
In the second half of the championship, Lorenzo posted only 1 victory out of 9 races, retired in Valencia Community Grand Prix and finished 2nd in rest of the 7 rounds. Lorenzo never took any risks and preferred to finish 2nd instead of getting involved
in a crash. Some said in the latter half of the season, Lorenzo rode merely to protect his championship advantage but Zeelenberg negates the idea.
“Jorge cleverly managed the championship. Finishing races in the second place and not taking too big a risk was the strategy. Lorenzo’s cautious riding in the second half was justified because a crash in the first few races can be recovered but a crash at
the end of the season is almost impossible to recover,” said Zeelenberg.
Lorenzo’s closest rival, Pedrosa lost all hopes of winning the championship following his retirement from the Australian Grand Prix. With only 1 round to go, a 43 point difference between Lorenzo and Pedrosa after the Australian Grand Prix meant that Lorenzo
had won the championship already and so he did.
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