Jorge Lorenzo and Ducati seem to be more and more apart these days
It’s a difficult situation for the Ducati factory team in MotoGP, because not only Andrea Dovizioso didn’t accept the first offer Ducati made for him to renew his contract, but also because Jorge Lorenzo is asking more money than Ducati is able to pay him.
The Spanish rider is also negotiating a new contract with Ducati for 2019 onwards, but according to Davide Tardozzi, Ducati MotoGP team manager, quoted by Italian news portal Tutto Motori Web, the team will not reach the contract values that Lorenzo asks.
For Tardozzi, when Ducati hired Jorge Lorenzo, he was a World Champion and for Ducati to convince him to change from the Yamaha factory team they needed to pay a lot of money, reported to be something around 12 million euros per year.
But now things have changed.
Davide Tardozzi doesn’t agree when people say Ducati overpaid to get Lorenzo from Yamaha, but says Ducati won’t pay him what he’s asking to renew contract
Lorenzo isn’t winning races anymore, he continues to struggle to find the top spots in qualifying, and the situation inside the team also changed with Andrea Dovizioso now being the main rider inside the Ducati factory team.
Davide Tardozzi explains what’s happening with Jorge Lorenzo and Ducati
“As for the money it is said that he is overpaid, but I would like to mention that when we took Jorge, he was world champion. You say 12 million euros, but who has ever said it’s true? Also at that time, he had a contract already signed with Yamaha of 10 million plus personal sponsors. So we didn’t overpay. We can’t give him what he asks us, but he must understand that we can’t give him a Yamaha”.
With Ecstar Suzuki team very interested in signing Jorge Lorenzo and with the Ducati team manager saying they can’t pay him what he wants, it seems that the future of the Spanish rider won’t be at Ducati.