Lorenzo expects to be faster in Qatar

The Yamaha rider and his team were not been able to match the pace of the Hondas during testing, and arrive in the first race not expecting to be as strong as last year.

Lorenzo, however, believes he will be able to raise his game this weekend.

"We are not in the best moment right now, because we don't have a good set-up," said Lorenzo on Thursday in Qatar. "We need a little improvement in our bike to be very, very competitive, but I think we can be much, much faster than in the last test.

"This is what we are going to try from tonight."

The Spaniard conceded his rivals had taken a significant step forward during the winter, with Yamaha not having improved as much.

"To be honest, the rivals have improved a lot. Their bikes have improved a lot. The Yamahas improved from last year but not a lot, so right now we don't only have the problem of extracting the maximum potential but also we problems with the set-up of the bike.

"So tonight we are going to try to improve the set-up and I think we can be closer to the first and second positions. "