Speaking to the podcast “The Wild Project”, Jorge Lorenzo talked about the rivalries that existed during his racing years.
These rivalries included those with Valentino Rossi, which was much talked about at the time when the former Italian rider missed out on the chance to fight for the MotoGP title in 2015. Lorenzo also spoke about Rossi’s mentality in relation to the rivalries he faced and how the former Italian rider’s head worked throughout his career.
– Rossi was friends with Marco Melandri, but as soon as Marco started to stick his head out and raise his level, he defenestrated him, kicked him out. It was the same with Sete [Gibernau], they were very close friends and when he started fighting for the World Championship they became enemies. The same with Stoner, the same with me. With Márquez they were very close friends and always hugged, because Rossi had accepted that Márquez was his successor. And when, in 2015, Rossi could have won his last world championship, his ninth world championship, and they crashed in Argentina and Márquez fell, enemies
He added: ‘If you’re slower than Rossi you can be friends with him, but so can we. But I think he also needed to create an enemy to motivate himself. And he created it for himself, he forced it. When he had someone who was on his level, he turned them into an enemy and the friendship ended.