Lorenzo impressed with Ducati potential

Jorge Lorenzo on last year's Yamaha

New Ducati MotoGP signing Jorge Lorenzo has admitted to MCN that he was immediately impressed by the potential of the GP17 machine that he will ride for the 2017 MotoGP season after good first impressions during his first outing on the machine at the end-of-season Valencia test.

Restricted from saying too much about the development of the new bike just yet, the Spaniard was nonetheless left delighted after the test, with the performance of the machine (especially in cornering; always a weaker area of the package) leaving him admitting he can't wait to get going now.

"I cannot speak too much about the bike, but what I can say is that I'm very motivated and very happy. When I tried the bike, it put a big smile on my face inside the helmet, and that's very important.

"You want to take the maximum if you can, but we have a lot of work to do. We're fighting against amazing and talented riders, maybe even more than ever, and they have great bikes. But we have our strong points too, and we have to take advantage of them and to improve little by little the weak points.

"For sure the bike has some weak points, but every bike does, and we just have to work on them. I feel ready to put all my experience into that now, and to use my experience to improve the bike quite a bit. Some aspects of the bike were so great, and just some others need to be improved."

But while he's confident in the potential of his new red bike for the new year, Lorenzo isn't under any illusions that it's going to be plain sailing.

"The champion is always the favorite, so it must be Marc. But again I think it's going to be close, with Maverick on the Yamaha, Valentino will always be there too, and Iannone can be fast on the Suzuki. It'll be the same as this year – a lot of good riders on good bikes, with the potential to try and win races. The world title will be between three or four riders, and for sure it'll be very interesting!

"I want to believe that I can be one of those riders, but it could be that it's not. If it's not, I won't be too disappointed, and I'll think of the future. But from the first race, I'd like to think that I'd be able to fight for the win and maybe the title." Simon Patterson/MotorcycleNews