Jorge Lorenzo admits he was ‘scared’ of repeating last year’s bone-breaking crash in Dutch TT

MOTOGP star Jorge Lorenzo’s Dutch TT is a testament to what happens when a normally courageous rider is crippled by a fear of crashing.

Jorge Lorenzo of Spain in action on his Yamaha during the MotoGP Race of the Dutch Grand Prix, in Assen, northern Netherlands, Saturday June 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Vincent Jannink)

FEAR is not something motorcycle racing’s two-wheel warriors allow to creep into their minds.

Dwelling on the risks they take and their potential consequences inhibits their ability to do the magical, seemingly impossible things they do in the saddle of MotoGP’s high-powered machines. So they shut fear out; they give it no countenance nor any room to breathe.

But it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the fear wins, even among champions.

Fear was in control of Jorge Lorenzo during his slow ride to a distant 13th place in Sunday’s Dutch TT.

The multiple world title-winning Spaniard looked completely ill at ease aboard his Yamaha in the race’s semi-wet/semi-dry conditions.

After the race he revealed why.

He was “scared”.

“Today has been 100 percent my fault and I want to apologise to the team, the people that work with me and the fans because I was unable to be brave or to be fast in these hard conditions like the other riders,” a brutally honest Lorenzo said after the race.

The natural reactions and silky, fluid riding we are accustomed to seeing from him was blunted by the memory of his last ride in similar conditions at Assen 12 months ago.

Then, during the wet Thursday practice session, Lorenzo strayed too far over a white line and paid the price, his Yamaha spitting him over the handlebars into the earth, snapping his collarbone.

It was then that Lorenzo showed the immense strength of mind and character that has carried him to the top of his sport.

Instead of crawling into the bed of his luxurious Spanish villa to convalesce like a normal human being, Lorenzo immediately flew home to go under the knife.

After letting surgeons screw his broken bones back together he flew back to the circuit and rode in the race.

Less than 48 hours after his injury, Lorenzo finished a drained and heroic fifth. He had to be lifted off is bike, eyes filled with tears from the agonising 50-minute test he had just faced.

Mechanics congratulate Lorenzo as he is tended to by MotoGP’s chief doctor in the Yamaha garage after the race.

Yet the Lorenzo we saw Saturday was a shadow of the superman we saw that day, haunted by the memory of the painful injury that could well have cost him last year’s world championship.

“Last year I made something impossible, this year was the opposite,” Lorenzo admitted.

“I was the most scared rider on the track. When I saw the rain spots in some corners I just didn’t want to take risks.

“Last year I was very brave, maybe too brave, and the idea to crash again today made me close the throttle.”

The varying conditions during the race saw riders start out on wet weather rubber, switching to bikes armed with Bridgestone slicks in the early laps as a dry line began to form.

Lorenzo was fifth when the stops began, already 14 seconds behind eventual winner Marc Marquez before he switched bikes on Lap 8.

Lorenzo switched to slicks on Lap 8.

“The problem was when I changed to the dry tires and when I saw some spots in some corners I just didn’t want to take the risk to crash again and be injured again at this track,” he said.

“Probably the memory of last year was making me too conscious of the risks and too afraid to be fast.

“I guess in another track it will be different. Each time I saw spots the bike moved a little bit and I was getting some flashes of last year’s crash and I lost some focus.”

The gap from he to the leader blew out to over a minute by the time Lorenzo began to find confidence in himself.

“It was only in the last laps when I could see it wasn’t spitting anymore that I could do an acceptable performance.”

Even his quickest effort, set on the next-to-last lap, was a whole 0.713 seconds off the pace of the high-flying Marquez, whom Lorenzo is now 119 points behind in the title chase.

The next MotoGP is in a fortnight’s time at Germany’s Sachsenring, another circuit where wet and slippery conditions can catch out even the best of riders.

The two weeks will give plenty of time for Lorenzo to think about — or not to think about.

Originally published as Jorge Lorenzo admits he was ‘scared’ of repeating last year’s bone-breaking crash in Dutch TT