Qatar MotoGP: Yamaha boss targets top three for Jorge Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo’s Fiat Yamaha team boss is confident the Spaniard can cut the gap on dominant duo Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi in 2009 to claim a top three MotoGP world championship finish.

Lorenzo ended his rookie premier class fourth overall after a crash-strewn campaign, but his factory Yamaha team boss Daniele Romagnoli believes he will be much more of a stronger contender in 2009 with a year of experience under his belt.

Romagnoli said the target was to overhaul fellow Spaniard Dani Pedrosa for third in the series, while cutting the gap to Stoner and Yamaha YZR-M1 rider Rossi.

Romagnoli told MCN: “Casey has shown really great potential and to me he is the fastest right now over a single lap.

“But Valentino is the most complete rider who can manage practice and the race. There is some gap between those two and Jorge but we are right behind them.

“Nobody should be surprised by Casey’s speed but we have some questions about him. Is he not doing long runs because he is happy with his package and he is very fast, or can’t he do long runs because of his wrist?

“There is still a bit of a question mark about that but we’ll see in the first race.

“Casey and Valentino are very strong and if Jorge can finish just behind them it would be a great result and an improvement.”

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