Lorenzo happy for Marquez, set-up ideas

Jorge Lorenzo has hailed the 'huge' number of titles achieved by Repsol Honda team-mate Marc Marquez, who now stands on the verge of winning his eighth world championship.

Lorenzo was Spain's most successful premier-class rider prior to Marquez, his third title for Yamaha in 2015 also being the only defeat Marquez has suffered since his MotoGP debut.

This year's switch from Ducati to join Marquez at Honda hasn't delivered anything like the 'dream team' scenario predicted. But while Lorenzo has struggled with injuries and a lack of feel from the RCV, Marquez has won 8 of 14 races and needs to outscore lone remaining rival Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) by just two points to wrap up the title on Sunday in Buriram.

"I'm happy for him, that he's very close to achieving his eighth world championship," Lorenzo said.

"It's huge, so many world titles. But he completely deserves all these titles because of his talent, his speed, the risk his takes and the work he does, in my opinion."

Regarding his own prospects for this weekend, Lorenzo's first priority will be to make it safely through Friday after being injured due to a technical fault on his Ducati a year ago in Thailand.

Lorenzo's current injuries in the form of back fractures from Assen are still improving 'every day': "As I am more comfortable and having less pain, I am able to push more and hopefully this will help my speed on the bike."

As well as better physical shape, the #99 will have a revised set-up to try this weekend as he seeks to improve on a best result of just 14th since his injury comeback.

"The bike itself cannot change for the moment - the engine, the chassis or the electronic we don’t have any new parts," he said.

"But we have some ideas to change the setting to solve a little bit the problems that we have in the last couple of races about the traction at the end of the race.

"We lose so much grip from the rear tyre and probably we will need to sacrifice a little bit of front stability to gain rear grip to lose so much in the second part of the race.

"So let's try this way and let's see how it works."