Why Crutchlow believes Lorenzo could have tamed the Honda

The 2019 MotoGP season is in the record books, and the last chapter on Jorge Lorenzo's time in the championship's long history ended when the three-time premier class world champion stepped into retirement at the chequered flag at the Valencia season finale.

On the Thursday before that race, Lorenzo announced to the assembled press and his fellow riders that his most difficult season in MotoGP had ground away all motivation he had to continue and that he would be calling time on his distinguished career.

In a year plagued by injury and a difficulty adapting to the Honda, Lorenzo failed to register a top-10 finish and was a shadow of the rider that collected 47 wins in the top MotoGP class, as well as those three world titles.

As the barren winter months roll in, one question trumps all about Lorenzo - would he ever have been competitive on the Honda?

"It's a sad day for our sport," said Cal Crutchlow on the day Lorenzo announced his retirement. "A champion like Jorge, a five-time champion like Jorge, and a guy that on his day a lot of people wouldn't even be in the same race as.

"Sometimes even if you were on the podium you wouldn't even be in the same race as [him]. So, he's been a great champion and an ultimate professional. I know his character is a little bit different to anyone else's, and even the riders see that.

"I think he would have come good on the Honda; I don't know when. He knows how to ride a motorcycle. I still get to see his data now, and the way he brakes, the way he does things is incredible."

A large part of Lorenzo's struggles this year can be traced back to his machinery lineage. He spent nine years on the user-friendly Yamaha, a bike almost tailor-made for his riding style. Before that, he raced 125s and 250s, which require good corner speed to be fast over a lap. To expect Lorenzo to completely change his riding style at the snap of a finger was folly.

"He just rides the bike and that was probably the scariest thing [because] when he closed the visor he was like a machine" Crutchlow on Lorenzo

This was proven when he switched to Ducati in 2017. Though he scored a podium at Jerez, he largely struggled to ride the difficult Desmosedici in a natural way - it tended to sap him of energy in the second half of races. But the speed was there.

More of that performance came to the fore when a new aerodynamic fairing was introduced at the Czech GP that year, which allowed him to ride more naturally, while a long-requested fuel tank modification was finally granted to him at the 2018 Italian GP and meant he could win races again.

He would win three races that season before a wrist injury he suffered in Thailand cut his season short - and ultimately began the misery he would endure over the next 15 months as he transitioned to Honda.

But Lorenzo remains just the second Yamaha rider to have made a successful switch, in terms of achieving wins, to Ducati after Andrea Dovizioso (below) - though he struggled for two years after his move from Tech3 in 2013 before eventually becoming a regular podium and win threat.

Based purely on that, you could argue Lorenzo would have eventually made the Honda work for him with a little help. LCR Honda rider Crutchlow has spent the year observing Lorenzo's data, and also got to do so from 2011-13 during his time at Tech3, when both riders were part of the Yamaha family.

Crutchlow's insight is interesting, as he saw the same traits of Lorenzo's style on the Honda, which made him so dominant on the Yamaha, and likened him to Marc Marquez on the Honda.

When asked what he learned from Lorenzo during his Tech3 days by Autosport, Crutchlow said: "Unfortunately, not much, because we could never follow him and the data is exactly the same as it is now - the way he brakes, the way he scrubs off speed.

Though the bike was problematic, Lorenzo was trapped inside his mind. As so many sports stars can attest, mental strength is the hardest thing to regain

"He looks like he doesn't brake late at all, but he actually brakes very, very late. It's just how well he can decelerate the bike. But me and Colin [Edwards] used to laugh all the time that we'd just take him out of the equation, a little bit like Marc with Honda.

"When we were in Yamaha, if you looked at his setting on the bike - everybody that rode it was never going to [make it] work. But he just rode it like that, week in, week out. And he didn't really change much - he just rode this bike that was the same wheelbase. How he rode was really on the rear wheel and he didn't really care so much about the front.

"It looks like he rides a lot on the front, but he rear-wheel steers a lot - not by sliding, but the way he puts his body and stuff like that. It was difficult to learn from him."

In the three years Crutchlow was at Tech3, he beat Lorenzo on-track just twice, and his third place at Assen in 2013 ahead of Lorenzo's fifth at that race can pretty much be discounted due to the fact Lorenzo had broken his collarbone just 48 hours prior.

But, according to Crutchlow, some of that 'old' Lorenzo still existed this year.

"He just rides the bike and that was probably the scariest thing [because] when he closed the visor he was like a machine," he added. "I remember even looking this year, he did a 10-lap run somewhere and his sector was - say it was 31.0s - he did nine of them in a row.

"To do that is ridiculous, honestly, and I remember at Yamaha some of the things he was doing then was just... how you can stay on this level of concentration and this speed is just something very, very special."

In a sense, what Crutchlow explains highlights the biggest tragedy of Lorenzo's career downfall. He still possessed the embarrassing amount of talent that made him machine-like at Yamaha, and which he was able to eventually transpose onto the Ducati to become a winner again.

Yet, he was never able to muster it. His confidence and motivation to push on a bike that seemingly held a grudge against him - because of the violence of the crashes he had testing at Barcelona and the one at Assen that ruled him out of four races, which ultimately led to his retirement decision - was stripped from him.

It is impossible to truly know if Lorenzo could have become competitive on the Honda, as Crutchlow believes. Although the bike was problematic, Lorenzo was trapped inside his mind. As so many sports stars can attest, mental strength is the hardest thing to regain.

But it's hard to believe a rider as good as Lorenzo, who did successfully - albeit after some time - switch between bikes, wouldn't have eventually found his way on the RC213V. Indeed, Crutchlow's insight suggests it was possible.