For the second time in as many Sundays, Jorgeꦉ Lorenzo put his Ducati into the early lead of a MotoGP race.

At Brno, he was up front for three laps before the drying conditions prompted a pit stop. But Lorenzo re🅺mained at the head of a sunny Austrian round until la♍p 12 of 28.

At that point, reigning world champion Marc Marquez and team-mate Andrea Dovizioso moved ahead after a brief three-way battle. Lorenzo then lost a further position to the other Repsol Honda of Dani Pedrosa on lap 18, eventually finishing four-s☂econds from the podium and 6.7s from race winner Dovizioso.

"It's not the best result, because in Jerez I finished third. But in Jerez I finished 14 s▨econds from Dani, in Montmelo I finished 9♎ seconds from Dovi, but this time is the smallest difference," Lorenzo said. "Also I led more laps than ever, ten laps and again I was in the first row.

"So in general, for the performance, this has been the best weekend. The best feeling, the best performance. We must be satisfied, but not 𝓡happy, because obviously we want more, my team wants more for me. But obviously we are making huge steps lately, and I hope also to make the last one that I need in the Misano test [next Monday]."

Dovizioso said he🐭 had not needed to save fuel, since "at the beginning I savedꦦ the tyre and when you save the tyre you save also the fuel. I didn’t change any maps."

However Lorenzo did suffer fuel issues, forcing a reduction in maxi🅷mum power. His (soft) rear tyre - also used by Dovizioso - proved another area of weakness.

"Today there have been two problems for me" Lorenzo explained. "We were very close with the fuel, so from lap 3, I needed to put the last switch of the f꧙uel setting, the lowest power one, and my bike was slower than normal. I lost so much on the straights compared to the three guys.

"I rode like normal.ꦗ It's just I had ❀a better feeling than the rest with new tyres and I could take this advantage. But I wasn't going aggressive with the throttle. If I had better pace probably they would need many more laps to catch me, or maybe they wouldn't get to me.

"But unfortunately I couldn't have the same pace, or one tenth more, to win the rꦫace. From lap 12-15 I started losing a l꧙ot of traction on the right side, and I needed to slow down."

Dovizioso also used the soft rear tyre and Loren🍨zo was reluctant to label it a mistake.

"We will neve꧋r knowꩲ if we made the perfect decision on the rear tyre, because on the right side I lost so much traction," he said.

"But every time I am more natural on the 🗹bike, I'm getting more experience, more knowledge, and sooner or later we will make it happen. The important thing is that we reduced a lot the gap with the fastest ri🐬ders."

Lorenzo is now up to seventh in the world championship �𓂃�standings, between Monster Yamaha Tech 3 riders Johann Zarco and Jonas Folger.