Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi weren’t the best of friends while both of them raced for Yamaha in MotoGP
Jorge Lorenzo isn’t known to keep things for himself, and on his latest book “What I’ve learned until my 30”, the Spanish rider that now rides for the factory Ducati MotoGP team, went back in time and spoke about the return of Valentino Rossi to the Yamaha team in 2013.
When Rossi returned to Yamaha after two very disappointing years racing for Ducati, Lorenzo was at his best having won two MotoGP titles (2010 and 2012), having only been beaten by an amazing Casey Stoner on the Repsol Honda bike.
The Spanish rider knew the Yamaha prototype inside and out, and it was him that found the base settings for Yamaha engineers and technicians to use at every MotoGP round.
According to what Jorge Lorenzo wrote on his recently published book, Valentino Rossi took the opportunity to be back at the top and become more competitive after copying Lorenzo’s settings and training methods
“Rossi had just returned to Yamaha and there was an interest that he improved his results. I found out that my trainer, Antonio Casciano, had met in Tavullia with Rossi and his trainer. He told them my training methods, and I decided to end my collaboration with Antonio. Valentino started using the same bikes I used in Gerno, doing the same exercises. Coincidence or not, he became more competitive”.
For Jorge Lorenzo that was the point that made him rethink his relationship with Rossi and also with his own Yamaha team, specifically Massimo Meregalli, Yamaha team manager, because Lorenzo thought he was giving Rossi all the information that Lorenzo had about settings for the bike obtained during the free practices and qualifying
“I decided to talk with him (Massimo Meregalli), I could accept that he copied my settings for the race, but that was just too much. I preferred that Massimo didn’t watch my end of session meetings, I suspected he could say everything to Rossi”.
It seems things weren’t all that easy inside the Yamaha factory team during the years with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi as teammates.