The championship has a new leader almost half a year later, as we have already reported here. Jorge Martin has been in unbelievable form, decimating the competition and doing what he wants with his bike.
Today, in the Mandalika Sprint, the #89 was once again impeccable, getting a lot of overtaking, starting from 6th to finish the race in 1st position. In a debrief, Martin said he was very happy, saying that he even doubted if he would be able to overtake Brad Binder:
– I’m very happy, today was a difficult race because I started sixth, maybe it wasn’t the best position, but I was able to overtake a lot of riders and on a track where it’s usually difficult, so hopefully tomorrow we can do it again. (…) I wasn’t in the best position, that’s for sure. When I got to the first corner, I was in the dirty part, so I couldn’t overtake, I was just holding the position. Then, step by step I was overtaking some riders, and I was feeling really good, and I thought I wouldn’t even be able to overtake Brad, but in the end I overtook everyone. So, I’m very, very happy, even if I was managing the rear tyre a little bit, because it was difficult to take to the end, because the soft is very soft. I’m very proud of the work and we’ll see how I can improve.
Martin also said that the circuit has been gaining grip, despite the ideal race line remaining very narrow, noting that the problem in qualifying was that he recorded his best lap on the hard tyre:
– I think it’s getting cleaner every time we go out and that’s why we’re going faster. Today with the used soft tyres I did the same time as in qualifying with the new ones. The track is not bad, but as you say, it’s difficult to overtake because you only have about 1.5m to make the line, so you have to be very smart to prepare well for overtaking two or three corners before and I did that, and it was working. (…) I crashed on the new tyre and then on the hard tyre in front it was completely impossible. I was 4 tenths better than yesterday’s (Friday) time in sector 1, so it would have been 1.30 down or 1.29 for sure, but I almost crashed at Turn 5 and then when I crashed and came back into the pits I had to go out with a hard front and I gave as much as I could.
The new championship leader also made it clear that, despite appearing to be extremely comfortable on the bike, he gave 100% of himself to win the Sprint race:
– Yes, of course (I gave 100%). If not, it’s impossible to win. We’re in MotoGP and if you don’t take risks, starting from 6th to overtake champions like Fabio (Quartararo) and other riders, it’s very complicated.