Jorge Lorenzo seventh as MotoGP lands at Indianapolis

MotoGP made its long-awaited debut at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana today, the first time in 99 years that the track has seen motorcycle action. Jorge Lorenzo played a promising part in the opening day, finishing seventh overall in soaking wet conditions.

After a sunny and humid day yesterday, an area of low pressure brought non-stop rain today, which grew heavier throughout the afternoon. These were less than ideal conditions for the riders to begin getting to know the track, which uses part of the main straight before winding its way around inside the famous Oval. Lorenzo, who lies fourth in the MotoGP standings, made a positive start to his second race on US soil and found the track nature suited him more than he expected, enabling him to find a good base set-up from the start.

Jorge Lorenzo - Position: 7thTime: 1'53.850Laps: 50
"I am happy today because the track is much better than I expected and a lot less dangerous. Some walls are quite close to the racing line but in general it's not too bad. The first part, with the new tarmac, is difficult because it's very slippery and there's a lot of standing water, so you have to ride very carefully and very straight. The other part has better grip. We need to find a balance between tyres, which is the biggest issue we have to deal with. The back part is flowing and fun to ride, I think it suits my riding style so this is an unexpected surprise! Anyway, the situation is the same for all the riders, the weather is bad, it's a new track - we will do our best!"

Daniele Romagnoli - Team Manager
"Overall it's been a positive day for us. We have started at a new track, about which we had little information, but our pace has not been so bad all day. We need to improve our performance in section one quite a lot, where Jorge has some problems entering the turns because there is a lot of water on the track. It seems like we need to prepare a wet race set up because the forecast is more of the same, so tomorrow we will continue to try to improve our set-up and see what we can do."