Jorge Lorenzo is drawing positives from his Austin MotoGP race weekend on two fronts. The first being he lapped faster in the race than he had through most of practice and the second is a reduced gap to the leaders at the chequered flag.

The works Ducati man finished ninth in Texas after being forced off track, he claims, by Andrea Iannone cost him two places and two seconds but his gap to the winner was 17.979s whereas in Qatar the Mallorcan ended with a 20.516s deficit. He set a fastest lap of 2’05.756 on lap four which all means progress with GP17 is being made.

“Today I was faster than the weekend in pace as I was in the 2’05.7 which I never did in practice and I was even catching Andrea in the middle of the race but then I start to lose front grip as the right side was graining and I had to slow down a lot,” said Lorenzo, speaking at the track.

“Iannone catch me and pass me very aggressive in one corner, so I have to cut the track, lose two seconds where Petrucci pass me also, so I decided to just finish the race in ninth position. It’s not what we expected or what we are here for as we want to fight the Hondas and Yamaha but that is not possible. The positive thing is we are much, much closer.

“For sure we cannot be satisfied with the final position, because our target is certainly much higher, but in feeling and pace we made a small step forward in this race.”

Lorenzo previously confessed to errors made with his seating position in pre-season testing which had made a lot of gathered data irrelevant but he now says he feels much more comfortable on the bike.

"This is much more my natural position and a little bit better than Argentina, as I could demonstrate in the race. The important thing is to feel comfortable on the bike, to feel natural, and to be able to push and enter the corners with confidence and positivity.

"This race was not perfect but we are doing it, and I stayed behind Andrea who has been in the team five years, so he knows the bike perfectly."