Among the greats but not the greatest – that’s the harsh reality facing Jorge Lorenzo and Ducati. But now that they’re set to team up in 2017, can they take the step up together?
If Ducati has a mantra, it is the word ‘Passion’. It has been repeated frequently in sundry pronouncements over the company’s 14-year MotoGP tenure, through good times and bad. It’s all about Passion.
And then there is Jorge Lorenzo. Clinical, studious, level-headed and precise. If there is a single word to sum up the reigning champion, it might be ‘dispassionate’.
Now the two are to be married – cold as ice and hot as flame, both together in the same bed.
There is the matter of a compelling 2016 season to get out of the way first, yet the world of racing is already agog to see just what sort of fruit will spring from the loins of this yin-yang partnership.
There can be no doubt that Lorenzo is, on his day, the fastest rider in the world. Nor that the Ducati is the fastest MotoGP bike in the world, with brute power to spare. Look at the numbers.
But motorcycle racing is a subtle as well as a brutal sport. Rider and bike have to be able to work as one. Often each has to change to suit the other, a demanding and time-consuming process. How Jorge and the Ducati Corse engineers achieve this promises to be fascinating…..
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