A cold front tyre apparently caused his low side crash just a few corners into the race thought luckily he was able to walk away without any major injuries and will be fit and ready for the next round in Texas in three weeks time.

“I made a mistake, it was a long time ago that I last did that in a race,” Lorenzo commented afterwards. “We are not perfect; we are only human and sometimes we make mistakes. The tyres were different to last year and the temperature of the tarmac was a little colder.”

“I didn’t take these circumstances into account and I was too fast into the corner when the front and rear tyre were not ready yet. It's a pity to lose so many points with Marc (Marquez) and Valentino (Rossi) and Dani (Pedrosa) who are the favourites. Valentino demonstrated that the Yamaha can fight even with these tyres and the championship is very long so lets see what happens in Austin.”