MOTOGP: Lorenzo, Rossi ready for fresh start

With their days as Yamaha teammates now in the past, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo believe their new dynamic will allow an easing of tensions that were once so bad that a wall had to be installed to keep them apart.

"It always that when you have two cocks on the same farm it's difficult – that's always the way it is," Lorenzo told Britain's Motorcycle News. "The same in Repsol with Doohan and Criville, or in Formula 1 with Senna and Prost – it's always hard, because you want to beat the guy with the same bike or the same car.

"It's difficult to be friends with a rider you want to destroy. Finally, now, Rossi and I will still compete in the same category but with a different bike, and that makes a big difference."

After nine years and two championships at Yamaha, 2017 sees Lorenzo joining Ducati – for whom Rossi drove and suffered a career slump in 2011 and 2012 before returning to Yamaha in 2013. While their second stint together was more serene – in 2010, the situation was so tense they were separated by a wall – the two clashed this past September after the Misano race, when Lorenzo called Rossi's early overtaking move unnecessary and aggressive in a bitter post-race exchange:

LORENZO: My opinion is that the overtake was maybe too aggressive, he didn't need to make this overtake. But, you know, it's his style. Other riders overtake more clean and I have to just...

ROSSI: [laughs]

JL: It's true.

VR: It's not true.

JL: It is true.

VR: Try to look another time at the overtake on the television.

JL: If I don't put straight the bike we crash. Maybe you don't crash but I crash for sure.

VR: It's not true. I don't know what I have to say. What do I have to say with Marquez [after their battle] in Silverstone...

JL: It's your opinion...

The duo also fought hard in the penultimate race at Sepang, with Rossi attaining what he considered his "main target" of passing Lorenzo for second in the championship. The Italian admitted that at the end of 2015 their relationship "wasn't a good one," but the season finale at Valencia ended on a good note.

"It was a good moment," Rossi told MCN. "After the end of last year especially, our relationship wasn't a good one, but we've been together for a long time. He came to me and said good words about our relationship and it was a nice moment, and I'm happy with how it ended."