Motorcycling: Show goes on for Lorenzo despite high-speed crash

The Loren Show – the name the 21-year-old Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo gives to his on-track celebrations – continued in the French MotoGP at Le Mans yesterday with a stretcher, a wheelchair, a pair of crutches and a scooter as the supporting props for Fiat Yamaha.

Already riding with two fractured ankles, Lorenzo crashed his 800cc Yamaha in the closing seconds of practice on the 2.6-mile track. He was carried from the track on a stretcher but later emerged from his pitbox with the crutches across his knees on the back of a scooter ridden by his press officer.

He used the crutches and the wheelchair as supports to get him to his team's hospitality centre, where he said he would compete in today's qualifying session.

In his first season in MotoGP, Lorenzo has qualified in pole position in three out of four races, has won his first event, in Portugal, and holds second place in the points table. "I entered the corner a little bit quicker than on other laps, and I leant the bike over too much and lost the front tyre," he said of his crash. "Physically I am not 100 per cent, but psychologically as well because I am not able to enter the corners with the confidence that I had before."

Lorenzo had set a lap time of 1min 34.487sec, enough to make him fourth fastest of the day. Championship leader Dani Pedrosa was fastest on his Repsol Honda, from Casey Stoner and Colin Edwards. Britain's James Toseland was disappointed at being 15th fastest, 1.621sec slower than Pedrosa.