Lorenzo: Austin top-six qualifying performance a relief

Lorenzo finished only 11th on his debut with the Italian marque in Qatar and retired in an opening-lap crash in the second race in Argentina.

He's had his share of trouble during the COTA weekend, too, crashing late on in FP3 and then only narrowly escaping through the first segment of qualifying.

But the three-time premier-class champion persevered to finally score sixth in the pole shoot-out, beating teammate Andrea Dovizioso in the process.

“I wouldn't be happy in the last years finishing sixth,” Lorenzo said after qualifying.

“But, you know, knowing where we were before here and the bad races in Qatar and Argentina, not an especially good pre-season - finally a quite good result, a big breath [of relief] for all the team, for me. I was happy.”

Having finished 1.4s off poleman Marc Marquez in qualifying, Lorenzo conceded he and Ducati were still nowhere near the frontrunners.

“[We are] far from especially [Marc] Marquez and [Maverick] Vinales. Here the Honda works very well, in general the Yamaha is working very well. Still we are quite far in general, in other tracks we need to improve so much the bike for the future," he said.

“But the important thing is that every day I feel more connected to the bike, I could be closer to the limit that, in this moment, the bike can offer me, so that's a good sign.

“From my side, every time I need to work more to get the maximum of the bike – from the side of Ducati, for the future, they need to improve the weak points that we have now.”

“Not so many risks" in the race

Lorenzo felt his first-corner accident in the second race in Argentina was particularly costly as it followed a change to his riding position on the Ducati, and denied him an opportunity to learn more about the package, while he had also run off on the first lap in Qatar.

He said: “If I had finished the race in Argentina, probably tomorrow I could take some more risks. But I have to try to avoid another zero tomorrow."

“Especially in the first laps. If [a retirement] happens in the middle of the race or at the end of the race, when you get more kilometres, it's another thing - but if it happens again on the first or second lap, it's not the best.

“I need to take not so many risks tomorrow, important thing is to finish the race. We're going to try to finish, if possible, in the top five, top six, if it's not possible, top 10.”

Lorenzo also said, however, that even if he ends up not having a great race this weekend, he would still be leaving COTA happy with his improvement.

“For the moment I am satisfied because half of the work we've done, till now. Now tomorrow is the important thing, we have to reconfirm the good feeling, but for the moment, even if the race tomorrow is not very very good, I would be satisfied.”

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont