Jorge Martín finished second in the MotoGP Aragon GP. This allowed him to extend his lead in the championship after seeing his main rival, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), retire.
Only Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati) was out of reach for the Prima Pramac rider, who acknowledged the superiority of his rival during the press conference: ‘First of all, I want to congratulate Marc, because for sure after a long period is always difficult and he deserved the victory – he was super fast this weekend and was unbeatable. From my side, I tried to close the gap every practice, I tried to be closer to him, to learn from him, because in the first practice I was maybe one second behind and I was slowely closing, but never enough’.
Regarding his performance in the race, Martín commented: ‘In the race there was some point when I tried even to push, maybe to force a mistake, but I was forcing too much. So at the end I was ten secons behind, just trying to finish the race was also difficult. I struggled to keep the concentration at some point because being there in the middle of nowhere was difficult. But finally making it to the end was super good – also in second position, that is really important’.
Reflecting on the MotorLand Aragón round as a whole, the championship leader stated: ‘I feel that it was a really good weekend. I feel that after the crash [in the qualifying], being able to go back on track – that normally when this happens to me, I go with a lot of energy to the second stint and I crashed in the past. So I was calm, I feel I’m a more mature rider. Normally when there is no grip I struggle a lot, but I feel I improved in all conditions. This morning in the warm-up with really strange conditions I was first, straightaway in the FP1 I was second behind Marc. So taking out Marc I feel I was much stronger than the rest, this is really good. At the moment my battle is more with Pecco, so it’s important to be faster than him’.