Lorenzo, Yamaha More Determined to Beat Rossi in 2011

Valentino Rossi's switch to Ducati for the upcoming couple of seasons will provide his current team Yamaha with an extra motivation to beat the Doctor in the MotoGP. That is the argument of his current teammate Jorge Lorenzo, who believes he and his team will have one more reason to develop strongly during the winter, now that they'll have to go against the 9-time world champion.

“Yamaha will do its maximum to beat him; more speed and engine power will be needed but we will work harder than ever. Next season will be a very interesting championship,” said the Spaniard, who is now leading the world championship by more than 3 wins lengths from Honda's Dani Pedrosa, according to Autosport.

Lorenzo is known to have quite a cold relationship with Rossi, which has developed from the moment the 2-time 250cc champion set foot in the Yamaha garage. Something that speaks for itself in regards to the atmosphere inside the FIAT Yamaha squad is that Rossi asked for a wall to separate the two riders in the garage during racing weekends.

While admitting it was not something he would have expected of Rossi before joining Yamaha, Lorenzo insisted it only made him and his team more eager to beat the Italian. As for his new teammate, current Tech 3 rider Ben Spies, the Spaniard believes he will be much more easy to be around to than the 7-time MotoGP ace.

“I can feel we will have a good relationship with Ben. Perhaps we won't be best friends, but there won't be a wall in the garage and we won't keep our telemetries secret,” added the Spanish rider.

According to recent reports, the relationship between Rossi and Yamaha is already on the verge of deteriorating, as the Japanese bike manufacturer is still considering whether to let the Italian go immediately after the season finale at Valencia, or keep him away from new employer Ducati until the end of the calendar year (therefore affecting his testing and development work with the Ducati Desmosedici).