In the sprint on Saturday, Jorge Martin was the brilliant winner and had halved the gap to Francesco Bagnaia in the World Championship to seven points. On Sunday in the long MotoGP race, the Pramac driver wanted to pick up more points. Instead, a bad tire only set him back further.
In the end it was only enough for tenth place, while Bagnaia only had to admit defeat to Fabio Di Giannantonio. This increased his lead to 21 points.
“It’s hard to say what happened. It almost seems as if I had forgotten how to drive,” says Martin, summing up his race almost cynically. “You could see it at the start when my rear tire was spinning. This usually happens when the track is dirty or when the tire has already done a lot of laps, which wasn’t the case. So you can imagine what it was. “
The Spaniard blames a rotten Michelin tire for his poor performance. Like everyone in the field, he also had the hard rubber compound mounted on the rear wheel. But right from the start he didn’t get off well.
Martin: 1.2 seconds off race pace
“I was the only driver on the starting grid to whom this happened, across all classes. So there was definitely something wrong with the tire,” emphasizes Martin. At the end of the first round, the title contender was only in eighth place.
In the meantime, the Spaniard fought his way up to sixth place. But the move forward had left him early on and from the middle of the race it was all about going backwards.
“It was clear to me after just three laps that it would be impossible to achieve something similar to yesterday,” reveals Martin. “Yesterday in the sprint I did 1:53 times. And today I was 1.2 seconds off the race pace. I know I’m faster than that.” But the lack of rear wheel grip left him no chance to attack. “It felt like the track was wet.”
“I tried to manage the situation somehow, but I had the feeling that I was almost falling in every corner. (…) So it was difficult to even finish the race. But I’m proud that I at least did that with mine experience.”
When it comes to tire performance, the Spaniard wants clarity: “We will analyze it and follow up with the tire supplier.” He hasn’t spoken to Michelin yet.
“But they have to improve that, because it is not acceptable that the MotoGP World Championship is decided by a tire,” warns the Pramac rider. “It already happened to Pecco, like he said. It hadn’t happened to me before, until today.”
No consistent quality of Michelin tires?
In fact, after the sprint, Bagnaia complained about similar problems to Martin and also suspected a bad tire. He saved himself in fifth place.
Martin says of Michelin: “I don’t think they understand what happened at all. I suspect and hope that they don’t want to decide the world championship, but that they want to be competitive and create the same conditions for all of us.”
“But as I said, I lost 1.2 seconds off the pace in just one day. And I haven’t forgotten how to drive. So you have to analyze that and make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future.” Other drivers are also demanding this, as complaints about bad tires have recently increased.
Franco Morbidelli, for example, had a similar experience to Martin on Sunday in Qatar. “On this track, the best option was the hardest option – perhaps the one that no one expected us to use. And I think that these tires suffered from a certain inconsistency,” says the Yamaha rider.
“One moment the tire works, then you put a new one on and nothing works anymore. That’s hard to understand, but that happens sometimes. This morning I drove with used tires from Friday and was faster than this afternoon with new tires. There’s not much you can do except make the most of what you have – like Pecco yesterday and Jorge today.”
Even Yamaha and Honda are fighting with Martin
It quickly became clear to his opponents in the race that something was wrong with him. “From behind it looked as if he couldn’t push with the front wheel as usual,” says Martin’s teammate Johann Zarco. “He was quite fast at the entrance to the corner, but then he lacked speed in the corner.”
“Everyone is so close together and driving at the limit, even if it’s only about twelfth place. I also slipped around a lot. That of course makes the race all the more difficult.”
Fabio Quartararo, who usually sees no country against Martin on the Yamaha, was able to leave him behind this time. He analyzes: “He didn’t drive like yesterday. I don’t know what the problem was. But he wasn’t the same Jorge as yesterday.”
“He must have had a bigger problem, there’s no other way to explain the difference from yesterday. When I overtook him, I wanted to make sure not to cause any chaos. But he was obviously struggling more than in the sprint. I was faster this time, and that , even though I felt worse than yesterday.”
Marc Marquez was also one of the drivers who overtook Martin, even though he ended up finishing one position behind him. “He was slower than usual, especially in the corners and the acceleration,” he notes. “He was fast on the straight. But it looked like he was struggling with rear wheel grip.”
Martin: Title now harder, but not impossible
The fact that Martin has such bad luck in the final phase of the title fight naturally annoys him: “Of course I’m frustrated because I think I deserve this World Championship just as much. And today we lost a lot of ground.”
“It’s just a shame. I had such a great season and worked really hard. But it feels like they stole this world championship from me. Because before this race I thought I could do it (to take the title ;R’s note). Now it’s become really difficult,” he knows. Nevertheless, the Pramac driver is not giving up hope before the last race weekend.
“I think we can still do it. Valencia is a track that I like very much and where I have been strong in the past. And today you saw how quickly things can happen and you can gain points or lose points. If If I win both races, I have a small chance of winning the title.”
“But at the moment it’s about how this tire influenced my world championship. Because I think today I would have been able to gain more points.”