Jorge Martín finished the MotoGP Portuguese Grand Prix Sprint race in third place. The Prima Pramac rider trailed behind Maverick Viñales (Aprilia) and Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati) in yesterday’s race in Portimão.
The Spaniard told the press that he had difficulties with the rear vibrations of the bike, but believes that if he had managed to pass the winner, the outcome could have been different: ‘For sure I felt I was going to be able to battle for the victory. I tried it, but I couldn’t make that move on Maverick. I struggled a lot, I had again a lot of rear vibrations – I didn’t have on Friday, I didn’t have on Saturday morning, but in the Sprint race I had again a lot. So for sure it’s because we were pushing too much the rear tyre and then I had these problems. And every laps was worse and I couldn’t make the move on Maverick. So I think my position was really conditioned by don’t making that move. If not, I think I was a bit stronger to pull away, but it is what it is. Hopefully on the main race with the medium [tyre] that I feel more confident, we’ll try to have a more stable bike’.
Asked to explain the vibration problem, Martín said: ‘I think pushing a lot into the rear tyre is making us consume the tyre in a different way, I don’t know. But for sure it seems the balance of the tyre was incorrect; I don’t understand exactly. But with the new bike I think we need to be really careful on the tyres on the first laps to then push later. But at the beginning of the race already in Qatar, but also here, I had a lot of problems. So we need to solve it, because if not we will have this problem for all the season’.