Capirossi: Lorenzo not wild enough for Ducati

Former Ducati MotoGP race winner Loris Capirossi has said that Jorge Lorenzo doesn’t possess the wild character required to master the Ducati.

The three-time MotoGP World Champion has suffered a tough start to life on the Desmosedici with mistakes and crashes leading to his best finish a ninth place in the opening three races of the season, with that ninth place coming last time out at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. 

Whilst Lorenzo remains optimistic and understanding that he was never going to get straight onto the Ducati and be as competitive as he was on the Yamaha, the Spaniard did confess that the adaptations he has to make to his riding style were a lot more severe than he had anticipated prior to making the move and they’re subsequently taking a lot longer to implicate. 

Capirossi, who joined Ducati when they joined the MotoGP paddock in 2003, beleives that Lorenzo’s riding style and demeanour on the bike isn’t wild enough and is what is preventing the him from competing and the very sharp end of the field. 

“In my opinion, Lorenzo undoubtedly expected to find a different Ducati,” Capirossi told Italian radio station Radio 24.

“The Ducati is a competitive bike, which has its strong points and weak points. In recent years we have seen them being competitive on some tracks and not on others,” he said.

“On the tracks where the Ducati suffers, you have to ride it with a certain wickedness, and Lorenzo doesn’t have this wickedness. Lorenzo is a very fast rider, a very clean rider, but the Ducati needs a wild rider. [Andrea] Dovizioso is partly wild, but Lorenzo is not.”

Photo via Ducati Corse