‘Only’ seventh place on the grid, ‘only’ fourth in his favorite discipline of MotoGP sprints and also a crash in qualifying – Jorge Martin was definitely not in his usual top form on the premier class’s second trip to Spain. In fact, the Madrid native experienced his weakest race weekend of 2024 so far in Barcelona. Nevertheless, he was second on the podium on Sunday and not only maintained his comfortable lead in the World Championship over Francesco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez, but even increased it by one and two points respectively. Without a doubt a mature performance from the ‘Martinator’, which would probably not have been possible not so long ago.
“That was a very important weekend for me,” said the World Championship leader on Sunday in the MotoGP format ‘After the Flag’. “Yesterday [Samstag, Anm.] was not a good day, but we managed to identify our weak points and improve them. I fought for the win, I was only five laps away.” Martin had actually shown a significant improvement in performance on Sunday. After not being able to keep up with the top drivers in the sprint the day before, he suddenly led for a long time in the Catalonia Grand Prix. It was not until the 19th of 24 race laps that World Championship rival Bagnaia made the decisive overtaking maneuver in his fateful corner, Turn 5.
Jorge Martin stays cool: Barcelona turnaround in the Grand Prix
“I’m very happy. Especially because my actual position yesterday was seventh and today I came second on my own. That shows that we’re on the right track,” said the Pramac rider, who came fourth in the sprint but benefited from the crashes of Bagnaia, Brad Binder and Raul Fernandez ahead of him. Without their crashes, all three riders would probably have reached the finish line ahead of the ‘Martinator’ – but they didn’t. The number 89 rider, on the other hand, stayed cool and accepted the lack of pace on Saturday, did not overrun the bike and brought it over the finish line.
Then on Sunday, he tried again with the medium rear tyre, on which Martin had already felt much more comfortable in the training sessions on Friday than on the soft tyre, which had been the only sensible option in the sprint due to the short race distance of 12 laps. “I didn’t actually have a good start, but I had the best tactic in turn one,” he recalls and explains: “I stayed on the outside lane and was able to make up a few positions there. So I was already third after the first corner. Shortly afterwards, I was also able to overtake Pecco and Pedro [Acosta] overtake.”
Jorge Martin accepts second place in Barcelona: No unnecessary risk!
Having reached first place during the fifth lap, the Pramac driver controlled the action for a long time, but also had to defend himself against the rebellious super rookie Acosta – possibly decisively. “When Pedro was behind me, I really wanted to stay in the lead. Maybe I pushed too hard and didn’t save enough tires,” says Martin. Pedro Acosta crashed in turn ten just before the halfway point of the race on lap eleven, but by then he had already put the leader under massive pressure for five and a half laps, while Bagnaia held back in third place and managed tires. “When Pecco caught up with me, I had nothing left to defend myself.”
“I gave it one last try by switching to a different engine mapping, but my rear tire was already too damaged. My race was over,” says Martin, revealing a fair amount of maturity: “When I saw that we were eight or nine seconds ahead of third place, I told myself that there was no point in fighting with Pecco unnecessarily and just took the 20 points. Second place was the maximum today.”
The Martinator seems to have learned from his mistakes in Jerez or Mandalika, when he crashed in an attempt to keep the lead and went home with zero points. The reward is 26 important World Championship points, which no other MotoGP rider could beat on a personally weak weekend. The Pramac rider now has 155 points in the World Championship, putting him 39 points ahead of Bagnaia and 41 ahead of Marquez. Enea Bastianini, fourth in the World Championship, has already fallen back by 61 points after a horror weekend including ignored penalties.
Jorge Martin in a frenzy of joy: MotoGP World Championship battle with Marquez and Bagnaia!
This means that even before the guest appearance in Mugello next weekend (31.05 – 02.06.), it is already clear that Martin will remain the world championship leader at least until the Dutch TT at the end of June, regardless of the results in the Sprint and Grand Prix, because the maximum possible number of points per race weekend is 37 points. “I’m extremely happy, I really enjoyed the last two weekends,” says the 25-year-old, adding: “Wow, I’m actually fighting with Marc and Pecco for a world championship title! I’m trying to enjoy it. I’m one of the best three drivers in the world at the moment, it’s crazy.”