As Lorenzo dismounted, the ‘fan’ continued to laugh and shout comments about, as far as I could understand, the fact that he had gone to parc fermé when he didn’t belong there. Yamaha team members Marc Canela and Alberto Gomez could probably hear the abuse more easily than the rider as they were not wearing ear plugs and a helmet.

It was clear that Lorenzo was at least aware of the tone of the comments if not the exact words. But it looked as if he understood precisely what was being said.

It was a tough time to have a heckler. Lorenzo was hoping to overtake his teammate to claim 2nd in the championship. Perhaps disappointed with what he’d believed was a 3rd place grid spot, he’d then discovered that he was 4th. He’d already endured the additional frustration (and probably some embarrassment) of learning that he no longer belonged in parc fermé, and had to suffer the long, slow trip back to his garage.

When the heckler started mocking the champion, at first the feeling in pit lane seemed to be one of disbelief. Lorenzo had simply made a mistake, after all. He’d assumed he’d earned 3rd on the grid because the session was over and he’d either not noticed that Pedrosa was still on a hot lap, or at the worst, had assumed Pedrosa could not better Lorenzo’s 3rd place time. I suspect it was the former, because Pedrosa had been far down on the sheet when the flag fell, and on that final lap he had jumped up a fair bit to claim a spot on the front row.

Even if his mistake had been flavored with hubris, did he deserve to receive insults from a spectator? Certainly not. Most of us learn around the second grade that such behavior is inappropriate. Sadly, some of us never do.

But the part that really annoyed me about the situation was that, in addition to the behavior being such poor manners, it was performed while taking advantage of the safety of the elevated position. The heckler, a young guy around 20, wasn’t talking his smack to Lorenzo’s face. Even though he wasn’t far away, he was up high enough that there was no way Lorenzo or any of the Yamaha team members could do anything other than look at him. He was protected by the separation of the two physical spaces, and thus was free of the risk of a knuckle sandwich.

Had the heckler been standing in pit lane, face to face with Lorenzo, and in that situation decided to shout the same mocking criticism, the behaivor still would’ve been inappropriate. But it would at least not have seemed so cowardly.

Even if that had been the case, though, there was little Lorenzo could do in response. Had he punched the guy in the mouth, that would also have been inappropriate. As a professional athlete and multiple world champion, Lorenzo endures a fair amount of noblesse oblige, and is required to accept that ill-mannered fans will say iil-mannered things on the Internet and sometimes in person. Top athletes in many sports face the same challenge and are expected to take the high road.

To his credit, this is just what Lorenzo did. Though the glare he directed at the boor in the stands was sharp, he made no other gesture in that direction. He walked back to his place in the box and that was that.

Later I was thinking, once again, about how individuals such as Jorge Lorenzo have some of their finest moments not only in public, but on TV in front of millions of strangers. Their greatest failures are often on the same stage, for those same millions to witness and either empathize with or criticize according to their own opinions.

In their quests for championships, they also attract passionate fans, and sometimes passionate detractors. They must accept the good and bad sides of both. This is one reason why, in my mind, the high salaries they receive are well earned.

This incident didn’t make it on TV as far as I observed, and not many people in pit lane were there to witness it either. It’s just another instance of something that happened as part of Lorenzo’s life at the top of motorcycle racing. In my view, he handled it well, though to walk away as he did was far from easy.