Jorge Martín’s reaction to his retirement from the Spanish MotoGP was as good as it could be. This weekend, the Prima Pramac rider was consistently in the lead during the French GP, taking victory in Sunday’s main race after being the strongest in the Sprint race and qualifying.
After this strong performance, the Spaniard admitted that he did not expect to be at this level at Le Mans: ‘It’s the fourth time I’ve set the record, the Sprint and on Sunday. It’s definitely not easy, you have to be in great shape and I’m really happy about that. Here riding, we’ve been sitting in the same position pretty much since Thursday and I didn’t expect to get these results, so I’m really happy with that‘.
Regarding his approach to the race, Martín commented: ‘I didn’t have the best start, but I think that staying behind Pecco was a good strategy because I was studying him, trying to get the laps through, trying to have good tire pressure because in these cold conditions maybe he was dropping a little. . So I was confident behind him. And then with seven or eight laps to go, I said, “Okay, it’s time to make the move.” I tried the first time, I couldn’t get her to stay, I was a little wide, so she could attack again. And then the second time I did it perfectly, I took the risk of braking a little more. It was a little on the edge, but I’m super happy I was able to do it‘.
The final stage of the race was physically demanding for the championship leader, as he mentioned: ‘The last five laps were so long. I tried to push, I was a bit tired because it’s a really long race and with this wind that changed a bit compared to yesterday, so it was difficult. But I managed to make this little gap so they couldn’t attack again‘.
When he was still in second place, Martín was targeted by Márquez, and he spoke about that phase of the race: ‘I definitely knew Marc was behind. I saw [Fabio] DiGia was falling back, so I said, “I’m pretty good here behind Pecco.” Then I saw that Marc was also two seconds away, but the moment we started to fight a bit, he took almost a second in one lap. So I said, “Okay, I have to make the move [su Bagnaia] and try to push, because otherwise Marc will arrive and maybe I’ll finish third, not even second.” So I knew he was coming, that’s why I tried to make the move as fast as possible to try to impose my pace and try to create this little gap‘.
