Lorenzo draws first blood

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In a battle that went down to the wire, Spain’s Jorge Lorenzo held his nerve to give Yamaha a scintillating MotoGP triumph in the season-opener under floodlights at the Losail circuit in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.

The 2010 world champion crossed the chequered flag ahead of the Honda duo of Spain’s Dani Pedrosa and reigning champion Casey Stoner of Australia.

Trying to break away from the pack, Stoner widened the gap between him and the pursuers steadily. Things looked rosy for Stoner after he snatched the lead from pole leader Lorenzo as early as the third round in the 22-lap race.

But as luck would have it, Stoner aggravated an arm injury that had been troubling him for the past couple of months. Under the circumstances, Stoner was finding it hard to maintain the lead even as the finish point lurked just at a handshaking distance.

With just over three laps remaining, Lorenzo regained the lead from Stoner, who by then seemed to be clearly struggling with pace. And it didn’t take long before Pedrosa also overtook his team-mate to secure the runner’s up trophy.

Lorenzo was ecstatic over the result. “I think this triumph just goes on to emphasise the strong mind-set that I have. On a few instances, it became physically challenging to handle this 1000cc beast. Nonetheless, I never gave up even for a moment. I just kept pushing.

“Fortunately for us, Stoner started to struggle during the closing stages. This victory has set the ball rolling for Yamaha and we are confident of continuing the good show,” said the champion.

Meanwhile, Stoner rued the fact that he was unable to register a fifth victory at one of his favourite venues. “It was an ideal start for us. We were chalking the fastest laps out there until I started to feel spasms on my arm. On a couple of occasions, I was hanging on to the bar with just two fingers. I just couldn’t get a solid closed grip and that affected my braking as well. It was a pretty tough situation to deal with,” noted Stoner.

The Australian added that he would need to step up his training regime in order to avoid the injury from resurfacing. “We will need to be up and running before the next round in Jerez (Spain) scheduled later this month. I have got a couple of weeks to train after which I think we can bounce back strongly,” he said.