MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo is expecting to be much faster at the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix than he was during testing.
The Yamaha rider and his team were not been able to match the pace of the Hondas during testing, and arrive in the first race not expecting to be as strong as last year. Lorenzo, however, believes he will be able to raise his game this weekend.
"We are not in the best moment right now, because we don't have a good setup," said Lorenzo on Thursday in Qatar. "We need a little improvement in our bike to be very, very competitive, but I think we can be much, much faster than in the last test. This is what we are going to try from tonight."
The Spaniard conceded his rivals had taken a significant step forward during the winter, with Yamaha not having improved as much.
"To be honest, the rivals have improved a lot. Their bikes have improved a lot. The Yamahas improved from last year but not a lot, so right now we don't only have the problem of extracting the maximum potential but also we have problems with the setup of the bike. So tonight we are going to try to improve the setup and I think we can be closer to the first and second positions. "