#chicho lorenzo

[eff-one-raccoon]

victor says that jlo isn't super strict with him (i.e. if he skips physical training, jorge might ask him why but it's not the end of the world)

and jorge going "acostumbrado a mi padre yo soy"

([he] i got used to my father) 😭

some additional notes:

victor has been working with chicho since he was four year-old

jorge liked his riding style

jorge has been working on victor's riding style because chicho was telling victor to hang off of the bike which jorge considers to be entirely unnecessary at the moto4/moto3 level

they have been working on physical fitness (no weights for victor! he's a baby)

jorge talking about how motorcycling remains a very dangerous sport and they do a lot of risk management

jorge doesn't want to pick a favorite for the championship, victor picked bez :)

jorge found it impossible to replicate marc's sliding in the left hand corners

valentino has bigger hands than jorge so he had some braking tricks that were physically impossible for jorge

"i saw a recent interview with dani" pedrenzo crumbs hehe

both he and dani agree that marc focuses on corner entry -- he would enter a corner much faster than anyone else and lose time on the exit which may or may not allow someone to catch him

jorge: "i probably liked bikes because my father liked bikes. if i had to choose another profession, i would've chosen it."

(source: JORGE LORENZO: “Estuve cerca de una depresión” | Márquez, Rossi y su retirada de MotoGP)

Edit: special thanks to @f1dumpsterobssesion for fact checking! <3

[waru-chan8]

Hi Waru <3

I got a quick question, since you speak Spanish fluently.

As someone who is currently learning, I feel like I can hear a difference between when Marc, Dani and Jorge are speaking. Like it seems there’s a difference between their dialects, as they are from different parts of Spain.

I googled it, and apparently there isn’t a Mallorcan dialect per say, but I’m dead set on the fact that Jorge’s Spanish sounds different to Dani’s or Marc’s. Is this because his dad is from a particular place in Spain, and therefore he has perhaps mimicked him? I can’t find out where Chicho is from, but it isn’t originally Mallorca.

Dani is from Sabadell, which is in Cataluña, but isn’t Marc also from around there? Cervera is also in Cataluña, right? So do they have the same dialect? I literally can’t tell.

How does it sound for YOU, as a Spanish person, when the three of them speak Spanish?

Thank you sm in advance <33

Hi Cams!!!

I'm sorry to inform you that I'm terrible at picking accents, I'm only able to pick the majors differences, like people from Andalusia or Galicia vs someone from Madrid or someone from Spain vs someone from outside Spain. However there's people who can say where someone is like Cadiz vs Sevilla (cities in Andalusia) just from speech patterns and accents and I can't do that.

Okay Jorge is from Majorca and his dad is from Galicia, which has a very distinctive speech pattern, way of stressing the words and accent. I don't think Jorge mimics it really, I mean I can hear some words stressed the way people from Galicia does, but not with all of them. I think with Jorge his accent comes mainly from how much he speaks Italian.

The Marc and Dani, yes it's true that they are both from Catalonia, but they are from 2 different parts from the region. And this have important consequences, that it's that they speak 2 different variants of Catalana which is not insignificant. People from Lleida will favour Catalan words over Spanish ones when speaking in Spanish plus they have a distinctive accent if they are Catalan speakers as their 1st language (it's called the Ponset). Dani in the other hand, has a pretty neutral accents in every language I have heard him talk (Catalan, Spanish and English, I can't say if he does in Italian), and he also speaks pretty slowly, which makes him a great people to learn from. Having said that, I don't really see a difference in between Dani and Marc when they talk in Spanish with the exception that I think Marc will use some Catalan words, which always confuses non Catalan speakers, but it's not something conscious even me who doesn't speak Catalan regularly do that because all my education has been in Catalan. However, I can't think Dani doing it

[eff-one-raccoon]

essential lorenzo lore

Interestingly, some of Jorge's first fall-outs with his father were about Valentino. Chicho isn't exactly Rossi's biggest fan, but he'd always insisted that 'The Doctor' was a better rider than Biaggi. So Jorge, partly because he liked to ride like him and partly because Max was Rossi's biggest enemy, rebelled against his father and became a Biaggi fan. 'The truth is that I started siding with Biaggi to wind my dad up in the Harada era. In 1997, when Biaggi signed for Honda after Aprilia decided they didn't want to continue with him, nobody thought he could win the title because, at that time, the Honda wasn't a winning bike. So when my dad used to go on about it, I'd say, "We'll see." And Biaggi won the first race at Shah Alam by 13 seconds! (Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far, p.85-86)

[eff-one-raccoon]

jorgentino is so fire

My dad used to say that Rossi was a clown. He said he was a great rider but that he always had the best bike and that was why he won. So when Rossi moved to Yamaha he said, "Pah! He's not even going to finish in the top six. There are too many factory Hondas and the Yamaha is nowhere near as good." Marcos and I said that Rossi would win races. Not only that, but that he would finish in the top three in the championship. So we made a bet. My dad had just come back from Thailand and he'd bought this ridiculous Thai hat, with little balls dangling from it on strings. We said that if Valentino finished in the top three at the end of the season, he'd have to wear the hat for a whole week. Of course, Valentino won the title and my dad turned up at the gym wearing the hat. He looked so stupid that we felt sorry for him and after a couple of days we told him he could take it off.' (Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far, p.146)

[eff-one-raccoon]

some more on the lorenzo-guerrero family dynamic

"Everything we earned, which wasn't much, was spent on racing. There's a hint of sadness in María's voice, because she can't help but be reminded of certain bitter suggestions that she never did anything for Jorge. 'If it was down to you, the boy would have never amounted to anything, Chicho once told her. She didn't get to spend as much time with Jorge as his father did because she spent all day working - first as a courier and then as a cook in a hotel - and all to try and help finance Chicho's project with Jorge. In racing, money is more than important, it is fundamental. (Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far, p.134)

At the age of four [Jorge's sister] Laura used to ride with Jorge and Chicho on their off-road excursions. Her father taught her well, but she never liked riding at the track. The off-road stuff was one thing but when she rode at the circuit she would get scared and throw herself to the ground, crashing on purpose so that her father wouldn't encourage her to ride any more. (p.134)

Jorge knew how to drag his knee on the tarmac but he didn't know how to raise his hand and greet people, how important it was to say 'please', 'thank you' or 'goodbye'. Chicho's training methods had been tough and effective, but there was plenty of room for the teaching of good manners. 'Chicho was really harsh on Jorge when he didn't do well', says María. 'I remember being at a circuit one day when he was training and after one bad lap his father said: "What a shit lap that was!" That kind of attitude always wound Jorge up. He got back on the bike and rode a perfect lap. For every action, a reaction. María couldn't understand why Chicho would say such things to a small child because she could see that he was getting on the bike angry, desperate to show his father that he could do better, and the risk of falling was much greater. 'Now what?' Jorge would retort. 'What about the time I just did?' (p.138)

[eff-one-raccoon]

uh. chicho strikes again.

'Jorge was a sickly boy,' remembers Marcos. 'He wasn't eating well. He'd get a cold twice a month. He was tired, exhausted. I can say with some satisfaction that we have had no injury problems in the gym itself. I have taught him to suffer, to deal with suffering and pain, and I have taught him the discipline necessary to be the best in whatever he decides to do.' (Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far, p.56-57)

i think i'm starting to understand why jorge said chicho was like an authoritarian gymnastics coach. when baby casey got sick, his parents took him to see a doctor. when baby jorge got sick, chicho got him a new trainer

[eff-one-raccoon]

ER: There was a turning point in your relationship with him [Chicho Lorenzo]- a 'before and after' moment. Tell me about the time between the races in Turkey and Mugello, in May 2006.

JL: My father has his ideas and he thinks that only his ideas work, that you can only achieve things by taking them on board. After the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, when I found out what he had said, I couldn't believe it! It was really heavy! I remember one thing in particular that he said: 'If my son wins tomorrow, it will be like giving a hit to a drug addict.' Incredible! At that time I thought, 'Is this guy really my dad? Either he's desperate or he's gone mad. What the hell is up with him?' But in the end I was able to understand him too. Firstly, because a father never wants to see anything bad happen to his child and very few do so intentionally. Secondly, I put myself in his shoes and realised that from the age of three to eighteen he has always been by my side, taking care of everything... Sure, it's not right that he should think that the objective is to be recompensed with money, that for the seeds we planted together you should give me a basket of fruit... But to have worked so hard for so long and then to one day fall out with your son, and for him to not want to know you anymore - I can understand it.

ER: But it's not like you cut your ties completely with your father. You just told him it was time to move on, that he wouldn't form a part of your new workforce.

JL: Yes, but I also told him not to bother coming to the races. I sent him away, so I can understand his reaction. Coming to the World Championship was his life. He loved watching his son race. 'Don't come to the races, don't speak to me, I don't want to know you.. I can understand that it must have been tough to hear those words. That's why he did what he did, but at the same time I have always said that I would have supported my father. I would have given him more than he could have possibly asked for. But what he said was so harsh, so strong, I still don't feel like helping him right now. Obviously if he was in a bad way I would, but not just now...

ER: In other words, the problem was money.

JL: My dad asked Marcos [Hirsch; his physical trainer] to act as an intermediary and tell me that I owed him a percentage of the money I earned. He said that he deserved to recoup his investment, reap the fruit of the seeds he had sown. Marcos told him no, he said he didn't agree and he wouldn't do it. That's where the conflict started. My dad got mad, instead of being smarter with Marcos, who had always been a help to him.

ER: Have you forgiven him?

JL: Everything in life can be forgiven.

ER: What about him? Has he forgiven you?

JL: Well... He still has his own ideas, the same ones he had back then. But at least he lets me get on with my life in peace. If I can help him out now and again I do. I went to Mallorca for the opening of his school. We don't exactly call each other every day but we get on.

ER: Did he celebrate when you were crowned World Champion?

JL: In 2007 he did, but I'm not sure about the year before. I'm sure he wasn't completely happy when I won at Mugello in 2006. It sounds crazy but my father is a very logical person - he does everything logically. Ask Marcos, he'll tell you the same, that my father is a genius, a craftsman, with some incredible ideas. But sometimes he can go a bit crazy and he doesn't know where to draw the line. Personally I don't think anybody in this life has the whole truth, nobody is 100 per cent right. At the same time I'm sure my father wasn't 100 per cent wrong about certain subjects ... not many anyway, but definitely some. At the start I didn't want to break up with him, just change things around. I understand that is hard to take. To be separated from your son after 18 years together, training him ... But he brought it on himself because he didn't want me to continue with Dani [Amatriaín]. If he'd have got on better with Dani, he'd still be here now, but that's the way he is. It's all or nothing with him and when he gets really angry you can't calm him down. He used to say: 'Since I've got nothing to lose, I don't care.' That didn't make sense to me and it hurt me the way he went about it because it wasn't right. I know that he didn't want anything bad to happen to his own son. There are people that anger you because you know they want to hurt you, or make life difficult for you, but that wasn't my father. He wanted the best for me and he thought his way was the best, but it was obvious to me that he was wrong. Only he and maybe four other people thought his was the right way. Even the press and some of his own friends turned against him!

(Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far, p.80-82)

[eff-one-raccoon]

about chicho's training methods

A few years ago Jorge Lorenzo suffered similar problems. At the start of the 2015 season he was lost, failing to score a single podium from the first three races, so his father went to work. “We worked on making him less nervous at the start and in the early laps,” says Chicho Lorenzo. “I would tell him to get into the mental situation of being on the grid. ‘OK, so where are you?’ ‘I’m on the grid.’ ‘OK, what’s making you nervous?’ ‘The race is about to start.’ ‘OK, so let’s analyse why.’ Then we worked on those problems to make him totally calm and concentrated’.” Lorenzo Senior goes as far as using methods employed by Mossad, Israel’s controversial intelligence agency, trying to keep his son and other riders calm in the midst of chaos. “Mossad train in simulators in high-stress situations, monitoring heart rates and teaching people to be at their limit while remaining calm, because the calmer you are, the stronger you are,” he adds. “Look at Valencia 2015: it was the most important race of Jorge’s life; he had to do everything perfectly, he couldn’t make a single mistake. So he had worked a lot on that from a mental point of view.” (source: The mystery of Maverick: why is he so up and down?)