Starting from 11th on the grid at the MotoGP Japanese GP, Jorge Martín faced a daunting task in minimizing losses in the championship – especially given Francesco Bagnaia’s (Ducati) strong position. However, the Prima Pramac rider quickly made his way into the top positions and even put some pressure on the Italian.
For the championship leader, the objective after being relegated to 11th on the grid was achieved: ‘For sure I’m happy. I could be a bit happier if I were in front of Pecco, but today the target was to be on the podium and we achieved it. Starting from 11th was difficult’.
According to Martín, he had to take more risks to recover positions compared to the Sprint race: ‘I did a great start, but not as good as yesterday, so I had to recover a lot of positions. Overtaking Marc [Márquez], Enea [Bastianini], Brad [Binder] was difficult, they are super strong in braking, so I had to take some more risks than yesterday. But then the pace was good, I was a bit faster than yesterday’.
When he got closer to Bagnaia, the Spaniard faced some difficulties, and after a scare, he settled for second place: ‘The main issue was that when I closed the gap to Pecco and I was less than half a second behind, I started struggling with the front. But even so, I never gave up. I was trying, I was trying. And with three or four laps to go, I was so, so close, but I had a big moment in turn 3. So I said, «it’s time to stop». I did a great job, so I have to be happy with second’.
Despite being less than a second behind Bagnaia at one point, Martín admitted he was never in a position to attack the leader: ‘As soon as I started closing the gap, I saw Pecco ran a bit wide at turn 11 twice, so I said, «Okay, he is also pushing 100%». It was a big battle at a bit of distance. We weren’t very close, so I never had the chance to make any move. But I put some pressure on him, trying to force him, but he was super strong, and also really clever’.