Rossi sees similarities in Lorenzo’s Yamaha return to his own comeback

Valentino Rossi believes Jorge Lorenzo has faced the same MotoGP career crossroads in his tough year at Honda and return to Yamaha having undergone a similar situation himself during the Italian’s ill-fated two years at Ducati.

Rossi surprised the MotoGP paddock when he left Yamaha to join Ducati in 2011 but struggled to find a competitive and comfortable feeling at the Italian manufacturer and duly returned to Yamaha after two tricky seasons in 2013.

The nine-time world champion says he sees familiarity in Lorenzo’s struggles initially at Ducati in 2017 and 2018 before finding Honda’s RC213V even trickier in 2019. After suffering heavy crashes at an in-season test in Catalunya and during practice at Assen, sustaining broken vertebrae in the latter, it led to Lorenzo retiring from racing before returning to Yamaha as test rider for 2020.

Having spoken to Lorenzo about his experiences, Rossi has been sympathetic to his former rival having drawn comparisons between their respective tough periods.

“I think that Jorge after the years at Ducati and his 2019 at Honda he was a little bit like me after 2011 and 2012,” Rossi said in a Yamaha Q&A video. “[I had] two very difficult seasons with Ducati where I never had a good feeling with the bike and bad results.

“Every time I tried to push more I crashed, I crashed a lot of times during the season and I always lost the feeling. You say it is over, stop and time to stay at home.

“But after Jorge jumped on the M1 and already from the first day he rediscovered that feeling. Riding again to push to go faster and not crashing.”

While Lorenzo remains “98%” certain he will remain retired from racing he has kept open the possibility of a comeback. Rossi feels the 32-year-old has the ability to return to MotoGP but doesn’t know if he is motivated or if Yamaha has a space in its rider line-up to accommodate the Spaniard in the future.

With Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo signed up to the factory Yamaha squad from 2021, Lorenzo’s potential return would put pressure on Franco Morbidelli’s place at the satellite Petronas Yamaha squad – with the Sepang-run team already offering a factory-specification bike to Rossi for 2021.

“I think he can think about coming back to MotoGP with Yamaha in the future but I don’t know if he has enough motivation,” Rossi said.

“I think that Franco is not very happy! This is a big problem as Franco last year was good but Quartararo was better.

“But during the winter tests Franco was always very fast so I think he will give his maximum to keep his place in that team. I don’t know what Lorenzo will decide and maybe Yamaha has to do five bikes!”

Rossi is yet to officially decide if he will continue to race in MotoGP next year and take up the Petronas Yamaha offer, but he has hinted at a formal decision as he “hopes to continue in 2021”.