Jorge Martín dominated Saturday at the French MotoGP Grand Prix. The championship leader secured pole position with a new lap record at Le Mans – the first ever in the 1m29s range – and then in the Sprint race he was the winner 2.280s ahead of Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati).
The Prima Pramac Spanish rider is pleased with his performance in this round: ‘I am quite happy. I think we had a fantastic performance up to the Sprint. Tomorrow will be interesting for us, to understand where we stand on Sundays. But you also earn points on Saturdays, so it is quite important to be fast‘.
Despite his confidence, Martín admitted there are some rough edges to smooth out for the main race: ‘I am confident, I think we have some good information for tomorrow’s race, because I didn’t feel like this in the morning. At the front, I was losing a bit in edge grip, it was much lower than in the morning. So we need to understand and see where… not to improve because we won’t improve lap times, but to be more confident and have a bit more front-end feedback‘.
Regarding the crash in qualifying, last year’s runner-up explained what happened: ‘I think I attacked a bit too much. Normally I sacrifice a bit in turn 3 to make turn 4 very fast and I tried to get on the throttle a bit too early, and when I changed direction I had no contact at the front. I still have some back pain, but I think it will be better for tomorrow. It’s nothing we couldn’t understand‘.
