Rossi & Lorenzo: ‘Suzuka would be very difficult’

Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo have both admitted that competing in the Suzuka 8hr race this year would be a ‘difficult’ challenge as they also race in the eighteen round MotoGP championship.

Rossi in particular has expressed in recent years to return to the race he won in 2001 with Colin Edwards, but, falling in the middle of MotoGP’s only mid-season break, he says the timing would make it difficult.

“First of all I would like so much to race together with Jorge. It would be very interesting and funny. Also to bring the new R1 to the race. But sincerely – I don’t know exactly the date of this year’s 8 Hours, but I did it in the past, 2000 and 2001, and it was a great, great effort. You have to fly to Japan two or three times and also the race is very hard. So I think for this year it is difficult but maybe in the future.”

An interesting sign of the new friendship in a garage separated by a wall only a few season ago, Lorenzo also says it looks unlikely despite him and Rossi discussing it.

“We speak sometimes with Vale to race in the future this race or even a car race, like the 24 Hours of Le Mans as we are big fans of cars also. But at this moment in our careers I think it is quite risky. To go over in the summer, the middle of the holidays, for an endurance race; maybe in the future. For the moment Yamaha didn’t say anything to us about that so I don’t know.”