Lorenzo rides through pain barrier

Jorge Lorenzo prepares to practice on his Yamaha in Shanghai

MotoGP

Despite severe pain in his ankles Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo put in a good shift in the Saturday morning free practice session.

After his huge crash on Friday morning, which resulted in a chipped bone in his left ankle and swelling and bruising on his right ankle, Jorge Lorenzo was back on his Yamaha M1 800cc prototype in Saturday’s third MotoGP free practice session of the weekend, lapping 21 times at Shanghai and concluding the run 14th on the timesheet.

The remarkable Fiat Yamaha rookie, who leads the World Championship after three races in the premier class, was a second slower than his pace setting team-mate Valentino Rossi, but made an important step in getting through the session – allowing his team to play catch-up on setting up for tomorrow’s race and proving his ability to ride despite his injuries.

Lorenzo stayed mounted on his bike throughout the practice, even during breaks in his pit-box, and his team manager Daniele Romagnoli told motogp.com, `The session was quite difficult because he has a lot of pain in both ankles, especially on the right side. At the beginning we were working to change the set-up and the gear selector position to make him more comfortable and that took up time but overall it is not so bad.´

`What he achieved this morning is already a good result. Of course it is difficult because we haven’t had so much time to set-up the bike, but today was the most difficult moment for him, getting back on the bike. Now he will go improving bit by bit.´