Phillip Island has always been an iconic circuit in the MotoGP World Championship. Jorge Lorenzo, in statements on the podcast “The Wild Project,” talked about how he began to realize the danger involved in being a MotoGP rider and all the risks they face, especially at the Australian circuit.
Lorenzo talked about a rather funny episode at the Phillip Island circuit: ‘Once in Australia, at Phillip Island, which is one of the fastest and most dangerous circuits in the Championship, my bike broke down and the mechanics had four or five hours to fix it. But since I had nothing to do, I ate pasta and went to the wall of the last corner, to watch Pedrosa, Rossi, Stoner… I was very close to the wall, the bikes were passing about 10 meters away. I saw Pedrosa and Rossi and said: “Am I going like this, like this? I thought: ‘if something goes wrong, if we hit a small stone and the bike loses control, and we fall… kaput’.
The former Spanish rider also talked about the feeling of being on a MotoGP bike and when he realized the danger he faced during all the GPs.
– That moment was like a bucket of cold water thrown at us. We think about winning and going as fast as possible to the next corner. Then, we are so protected – with the helmet, with the suit, with the gloves and with the boots – that we have a feeling of warmth that makes us see that we are capable of anything when we are on the bike and we are not aware of the risk. Only when something bad happens to us, like in this case a finger or two crushed vertebrae, do we say ‘damn, I could kill myself here at any moment.
