Jorge Lorenzo said there was no way he could shake off Dani Pedrosa in the Portuguese Grand Prix, and felt he exhausted himself in his efforts to pull away from the Honda rider.
Yamaha man Lorenzo had won at Estoril on every previous MotoGP appearance, but Pedrosa beat him today with a late pass after a race-long duel.
"As always I tried my best. I pushed a lot," said Lorenzo. "I tried to open a gap, but when I passed the straight Dani was always behind me. Maybe I pushed so much that my physical condition was a little bit lower than Dani."
Pedrosa has struggled to maintain his pace over a race distance in recent races due to issues with a plate on his collarbone causing him to lose feeling in his arms. The plate was removed in surgery after the Spanish GP, and Lorenzo said it had been a different experience to find Pedrosa attacking harder as the race progressed rather than fading away.
"He deserved the victory 100 percent because he was faster at the end of the race and normally it's the opposite," said Lorenzo. "Let's see what happens in the next races."