Former MotoGP king Jorge Lorenzo has revealed he had two chances to make a Ducati return but says he didn't feel the desire to race.

The Spaniard, who had a torrid time with the Bologna factory, believes that if the Desmosedici supplied to him at the start of his tenure had been like the current version, he would have fared a lot better.

"For sure that if, in 2017, I would’ve had the Ducati they have today, my results would have been much better. When Gigi arrived in 2014, step-by-step and through attempts and mistakes, he managed to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, both from a technical and rider’s point of view, so that there can be many competitive bikes and, at the moment, they are unstoppable," said Lorenzo.

"For both 2020 and 2021, I had two opportunities to return to Ducati. But at the last moment I didn’t feel that passion or desire to sign.

"Sometimes you have to know when to stop. This is a risky sport when you can hurt yourself. I didn’t want to take risks because I didn’t feel the need to race anymore."